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ORATORICAL 



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PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION 



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SIMPLIFIED AND ILLUSTRATED BY 



SUITABLE EXAMPLES: 



IKTEKDED EOK IKE 



USE OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SEMINARIES. 



By A. M. HARTLEY, 

TEACHER $F ELOCUTION". 



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KINTED BY JAMES HEDDERWICK AND SON, • 

LLMERS AND COLLINS, GLASGOW; 

VAUGH AND INNES, EDINBURGH ; 
R. M. TIMS, DUBLIN ; 
. AND W. B. WHITTAKER, LONDON. 



1824. 



*'*^" 



,' 



\N 



^ 



^s 



TO THE 



REV. RALPH WARDLAW, D. D. 



Reverend Sir, 

Fully aware that you aspire to no other 
distinction than what arises from a faithful discharge of 
the duties of your sacred office, and, even if you did, that 
any complimentary effusions from me, could add but little 
to your fortune or your fame, I refrain from descanting 
on these virtues and talents which command the esteem 
and xudmiration of all who know you— and shall simply 
state, that my chief motives for dedicating the following 
Compilation to you, are, because I consider you at once 
an accurate judge of the merits of such a performance, and 
in many respects a model of that science whose principles 
t professes to inculcate and explain. 



I am, 



Reverend Sir, 

With the most sincere respect and esteem, 
Your very obedient Servant, 

A. M. HARTLEY. 



PREFACE. 




Elocution seems at length to have obtained its proper 
rank in public opinion, and to be reckoned, not merely an 
ornamental, but a necessary and useful branch of polite 
education: and, indeed, it seems not a little surprising — 
in a country where all other literary pursuits are so eagerly 
and so successfully cultivated, where the pages of philo- 
phers, historians, orators, and poets, vie with the most 
splendid productions of Greece and Rome, — that this art, 
so essential, to public speakers at least, should have re- 
mained so long neglected, while its utility is universally 
acknowledged: more especially, in a country, which, in 
every respect, affords more scope for the display of ora- 
tory, than any other kingdom in Europe. We do not 
deny that " Loquendi recte, sapere est et principium et 
\ fons;" yet, while we grant this, we maintain that no man 
has ever so much as approached the perfection of oratory, 
without having paid the most minute attention to his 
Bfeery: — but as we have sufficiently expressed our sen- 
ents concerning this subject, in the following " Intro- 
duction," we shall not provoke the impatience of our 
readers, by reiterating them here. 

As, in this work, our ambition is, to be thought rather 
useful than original, we have endeavored to profit by every 
thing that has been already written on the subject by any 



VI PREFACE. 

author of note, particularly by the celebrated Mr. Walker, 
to whose single exertions we confess ourselves more in- 
debted, for any knowledge we possess of the science of 
speaking, than to all that has been said upon it by all 
other authors put together. 

We have taken the liberty to alter the words in many 
parts of some of the extracts, where the language appeared 
to us inelegant or ungrammatical, when we could do so 
without perverting the author's meaning: and we trust it 
will be seen, that we have not been indifferent to the 
principles that may be imbibed by a frequent perusal of 
the lessons. 

We think it unnecessary to state the reasons that in- 
duced us to publish the following Compilation. It is 
sufficient, that we considered something of the kind still 
wanted, notwithstanding the numerous Selections already 
in use. We cannot be accused of more vanity or more 
partiality than our neighbors, tho we claim the privilege 
of thinking more of our own than of any thing of the kind 
now before the public. Of its merits, however, the public 
will, of course, judge for themselves; and to them we 
cheerfully commit our claims, — fully convinced of their 
impartial decision. 

8, George-Street, Glasgow. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Introduction, ---------l 

PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 
The voice, --------- 9 

Articulation, --------- 10 

Modulation, --------- 10 

Tones, ----------11 

Inflexions, --------- 14, 

Table" of Inflexions, - - - - - * - - -17 

Praxis on Inflexions, -------- 18 

General Rules, - - - - - - - - -19 

Exercises on the Preceding Rules, ----- 20 

Series, -----------31 

Circumflex, --------- 33 

Monotone, - - - -.- - - - - -34? 

Eliptical Member, -------- 34 

Repetition, - -- - - - - - - -35 

Harmonic Inflexion, -------- 36 

Climax, ----------37 

Emphasis, --------- 44, 

MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 

On Benevolence, ------- Hume, 50 

Discontent, the common Lot of all Mankind, - - Rambler, 51 

Sun- Set, - - - - - Lights <$* Shadows, fyc. 53 

On the Love of Fame, _ - - - - W. Irvine, 54 

Christianity Defended against Scepticism, - - Lord Lyttleton, 55 

On the Elocution of the Pulpit, - Rev. J, Fordyce, 61 

^The Old Major and the Young Officer, - < - - Taller, 62 

«marks of a Sceptic on the Majesty of the Scriptures, Rousseau, 63 

' On the comparatively small Influence of Religion on t}ie mere 

natural Mind, when opposed by Worldly Temptation, Foster, 65 

The Bashful Man, - Anon. 67 

Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 1717, - Bishop Berkeley, 72 

On Mr. (now Sir Walter) Scott's Vision of Don Roderick, 

Edinburgh Review, 75 

The Fair and Happy Milk-Maid, - - -Sir T. Overbury, 76 

Description of the World,' - W. Irvine, 77 

On the relative Value of good Sense and Beauty in the Female Sex, 

Literary Gazette, 79 



Vlll 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

The Story of a disabled Soldier, - Goldsmith, 81 

Remarks on Homer, the Bible, Dante, and Ossian, - Hazlitt, 85 
On Genius and Fame, ------ Ibid* 89 

Letter on Punning, ------ Anon. 91 

The Gamester, ------- Godwin, 92 

On the Importance of the Purity of the Female Character to the 

general Interests of Society, - Edin. Review, 93 

On Calumny, - - - - - - -- Brown, 94? 

The Veteran Profligate, ------- Ibid. 95 

On Education, -------- Ibid. 96 

The most Horrible Battle ever recorded in Poetry or Prose ; with 

the Heroic Exploits of Peter the Headstrong, - W. Irvine, 98 

The Advantages of a Taste for the Beauties of Nature, Dr. Percival, 105 

Visit to the Field of Waterloo in 1815, - - John Scott, 106 

The Widow's Retinue, - W* Irvine, 108 

Character of Napoleon Bonaparte, - C. Phillips, 110 

Every Man the Architect of his own Fortune, - Macdiarmid, 1 12 

Nature, -------- Keate, 116 

The Death of Altamont, Br. Young, 118 

The Female Character, ----- Edin. Review, 121 

American in England, ---•--•--.. W. Irvine, 123 

Reflections on the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, - - Simpson, 124 

Contrast betwen the Duke of Bedford and Mr. Burke, Burke, 127 

The Attempted Assassination of the Queen of France in 1789, Ibid. 128 

Burke's Account of his Son, ----- Ibid. 131 

The Voyage, W.Irvine, 133 

PATHETIC EXTRACTS. 

Rural Funerals, -------- W, Irvine, 136 

The Broken Heart, Ibid. 138 

The Pride of the Village, - - - - Ibid. 141 

Tht Story of Mary Watson, - Attic Stories, 149 

Liberty and Slavery, ------ Sterne, 153 

Comal and Galvina, ------ Ossian, 154 

The Elder's Death-bed, Wilson, 156 

Reyno and Alpin, ------- Ossian, 159 

BIOGRAPHICAL EXTRACTS. 

Character of Queen Elizabeth, - Hume, 161 

Character of Mary Queen of Scots, - Robertson, 163 

Character of Hannibal, ------ Livy, 164 

Character of Cato, ------ Middleton, 165 

Character of Julius Csesar, ------ Ibid. 166 | 

Character of King Alfred, ----- Hume, 16 

Character of Mr. C. J. Fox, Hazlitt, 168 

Character of the Earl of Chatham, - - - - Ibid. 170 * 

Comparison of Burke with the Earl of Chatham, - - Ibid. 171 

Kosciusko, -------- Anon. 172 

PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 

The Death of Christ, Finlayson, 178 

On the Evil of Infidel Writings, - - Rev. Dr. Muir, 178 

On the Deluding Influence of the World, - - Kir wan, 180 

Infatuation of Mankind, with regard to the Things of Time, Ibid. 182 

The Power of Habit, a useful Principle to Man, - Horsley, 183 



CONTENTS. 



IX 



PAGE 

Insignificance of this World, - Chalmers, 185 

Christian Benevolence looks forward to Futurity, - - Ibid, 187 
The Hatefulness of War, ------ Ibid, 190 

On the Death of Christ, Blair, 193 

Infidelity, ------ Andrew Thomson, 196 

On the same subject, ------- Ibid, 198 

Appeal in favor of the Heathen Nations, *• - Henry Grey, 200 
Danger of Delay in Matters of Religion, - - Logan, 203 

Religion, the distinguishing Quality of our Nature, - Ibid, 205 

On the Threatened Invasion in 1803, - Hall, 206 

On the same subject, ------ Alison, 209 

The Inquisition, Burgh, 211 

Joseph and his Brethren, Bible, 212 

Nathan's Parable, Ibid, 215 

The Song of Deborah and Barak, .... Ibid, 216 

Jeremiah lamenteth the Jews, &c Ibid, 217 

Paul's Defence before Agrippa, . . . New Testament, 219 

ANCIENT ELOQUENCE. 

The Oration of iEschines against Demosthenes, on the Crown, . 222 
The Answer of Demosthenes, ...... 225 

Demosthenes to the Athenians, exciting them to prosecute the War 

against Philip, 230 

Cicero against Verres, 235 

Galgacus to the Caledonian Army, 238 

Hannibal to his Soldiers, Livy, 242 

Caius Marius to the Romans, 244 



MODERN ELOQUENCE. 

Mr. Pitt on the African Slave Trade, April 27, 1792, 

On the same subject, 

Lord Mansfield on the Delays of Justice, 
Sir G. Saville, on the Liberty of the Subject, 
Grattan on the Address to His Majesty. — 1782, 
Grattan on the National Grievances.-— 1788, 
Burke on the Debts of the Nabob of Arcot.— 1785, 
Quarrel between Flood and Grattan, 

Invective against Hastings, 

Curran in Defence of Mr. Finnerty, • 
Description of an Informer, .... 

Liberty of the Press, 

On Catholic Emancipation, .... 

Tribute to Scotland, &c. 

Lord Erskine in favor of Hardy, .... 
Lord Erskine on the Trial of John Stockdale, . 
Lord Erskine on the same subject, 
Lord Erskine on the same subject, . 
Lord Erskine in Defence of Captain Baillie, 
Lord Erskine' s Speech on the Age of Reason, 
Mr. Pitt's Reply to Horace Walpole, • 

Lord Chatham on the American War, 
Sir James Macintosh in Defence of Peltier, 
On the Manner of Reading Verse, 



247 
Pitt, 250 
252 
254 
256 
258 
259 



Sheridan, 265 

. 267 

Curran, 273 

. Ibid, 274 

Ibid, 276 

. Ibid, 278 

281 

. 283 

286 

. 289 

290 

. 293 

298 

. 299 

. 302 

312 



X 



CONTENTS. 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. page 

Lines Written on Visiting a Scene in Argyleshire, - Campbell, 313 
The Soldier's Dream, ----- - Ibid. 314 

Glenara, -------- - Ibid. 315 

The Star of Bethlehem, H. K. White, 316 

On Prayer, ------ Montgomery, 316 

The Voice of Praise, - - - - Mary M. Mitford, 317 

Genius, -------- Anon. 319 

The Dying Soldier, - - - - - - Anon. 319 

The Evening Cloud, Wilson, 320 

The Contrast, - - - - - - - Anon. 321 

The Mariner's Dream, ----- Dimond, 322 

Hymn to Nature, ------ Brandon, 324 

The Orphans, ------- Anon. 324? 

Love of Country, - - - - - Sir W. Scott, 327 

The Maniac, Bloomfield, 328 

Address to the Ocean, ------ Procter, 330 

On the Downfal of Poland, ----- Campbell, 331 

On the Dissolution of Nature, - Milman, 332 

Enumeration of Sweets, ------ Byron, 334 

The Battle of Hohenlinden, ----- Campbell, 335 

The Storm, Byron, 336 

The Maid of the Inn, ------ Southey, 337 

Hymn on Modern Greece, ------ Byron, 340 

Lord Ullin's Daughter, ----- Campbell, 342 

Fitz-James and Rhoderick Dhu, - - - Sir W. Scott, 344 

Modern Greece, - • % - - - - - - Byron, 347 

Imitation of the Preceding Passage, - - - - Anon. 348 

On Sleep, -------- Byron, 349 

The Fate of Macgregor, ------ Hogg, 349 

The Battle of Morgarten, Edin. Mag. 352 

The Lyre, ------- Montgomery, 355 

Summer Hymn, ------- Anon. 357 

Lochinvar, - - - - - - - Sir W. Scott, 359 

The Field of Waterloo, Byron, 360 

Lord William, ------ - Southey, 362 

Outalissi, ------- Campbell, 366 

A Beth Gelert, ------- Spencer, 368 

The Road to Happiness open to all Men, - - - Pope, 370 

The Field of Morat, Byron, 371 

Thunder- Storm among the Alps, - - - - Ibid. 373 

The Present Aspect of Greece, - - - - - Ibid. 374 

Jupiter's Address to the Inferior Deities, - - - Pope, 375 
On the Fall of Algiers, - - - - - M'GUl, 376 

Battle of Albuera, ------- Byron, 378 

Bull-Baiting, Ibid. 379 

Clitumnus, -------- Ibid. 380 

The Gladiator, - Ibid. 382 

Address to the Ocean, ------ Ibid. 383 

Zuleika, Ibid. 384 

The Prisoner of Chillon, Ibid. 386 

Alp, Ibid. 388 

Conrad, Ibid. 390 

Ode to Eloquence, ------- Anon. 390 

Alexander's Feast, ------ Dryden, 392 

The Passions, - ------- Collins, 396 



CONTENTS. 



XI 



EXTRACTS IN BLANK VERSE. page 

The Fallen Planet, Hogg, 399 

Darkness, . Byron, 401 

Marcelia, Procter, 403 

Crazy Kate, Coivper, 404 

Belial dissuading from War, Milton, 405 

Satan's Address to the Sun, Ibid, 407 

On Procrastination, ...... Young, 409 

Celadon and Amelia, ...... Thomson, 410 

DRAMATIC SPEECHES. 

Richmond Encouraging his Soldiers, - - Shakespeare, 412 

Marcellus to the Mob, - - - - - - Ibid. 412 

Henry V. at Harfleur, Ibid. 413 

Mark Antony's Oration, ------ Ibid. 414 

Cassius against Caesar, ------ Ibid. 416 

Junius Brutus over the Dead Body of Lucretia, - - Payne, 418 
Marcus Brutus on the Death of Caesar, - - Shakespeare, 419 
Rolla to the Peruvians, ----- Sheridan, 420 

Shylock justifying his meditated Revenge, - - Shakespeare, 421 

SOLILOQUIES. 

Cato on the Immortality of the Soul, - Addison, 422 

Hamlet on his Mother's Marriage with his Uncle, Shakespeare, 423 

Hamlet on the Immortality of the Soul, - - - Ibid. 423 

The King in Hamlet, Ibid. 424 

Macbeth to the Dagger, ------ Ibid. 425 

Sir Peter Teazle on his Marriage, - - - - Sheridan, 426 

DIALOGUES. 

From "The Fall of Jerusalem," - Mttlman, 427 

Ditto ditto, Ibid. 430 

Brutus and Cassius, - -. - - - - Shakespeare, 434 

King Henry IV. Northumberland, and Hotspur, - Ibid. 438 

Cato ? s Senate, ------ Addison, 441 

Coriolanus and Aufidius, - - - - Shakespeare, 445 

Norval and Glenalvon, ------ Home, 448 

Lochiel's Warning, Campbell, 451 

Priuli and Jaffier, Otway, 453 

Pierre and Jaffier, Ibid. 455 

Lady Randolph and Douglas, ..... Home, 459 

Lady Townly and Lady Grace, .... Goldsmith, 462 

COMIC EXTRACTS. 

Law, Steven, 468 

The Farmer's Wife and the Gascon, . New Mon. Mag. 470 

Jenkins and the Smuggler, ...... Ibid. 472 

The Ladies' Petition to Dr. Moyes, .... Anon. 475 

He and She Dandies, Anon. 476 

The Barber's Revenge, Anon. 477 

The Village Spectre, Anon. 480 

Modern Logic, Anon. 4S2 

The Country Bumpkin and Razor- Seller, . Peter Pindar, 483 



INTRODUCTION. 



When we reflect how much the study of elocution is now 
encouraged, and cultivated, it may seem an idle waste of 
words to insist on its importance and utility. Such an 
objection, however, can be made only by those who 
patronize the art, but does not apply to those who prac- 
tise it : and this work is intended almost solely for the 
latter. Not to enlarge on the advantages derived from an 
acquaintance with those causes on which the effects of 
elocution necessarily depend, as well as with the properties 
of voice, articulation, inflexion, &c. which are to consti- 
tute our leading topics, it is enough, if, by commemorat- 
ing the names, the labors, and the triumphs of the most 
celebrated masters of delivery, interest and enthusiasm 
be awakened in the learner; for, in these pursuits, to 
wall is almost to accomplish. All those causes, then, to 
which the powers of elocution are owing, have been 
generalized into what is termed natural language. This, 
tho inferior perhaps to artificial language, or words, in 
conveying descriptions, still renders such depictions more 
plain and vivid, and assuredly transmits emotion with a 
power and a delicacy, of which words, unassisted, are in- 
capable. We need not go far for proofs of its significance. 
Tbe voice (but of this more hereafter) is, without doubt, 
the most efficient instrument in delivery; but even with- 
out its aid, and by gesture alone, the dumb can converse 
intelligibly with each other; and the ancient mimes, not 
only made their hearers at once comprehend the whole 
stoiy of the drama, but even agitated them with various 
Ipassions. Such is its power, that a look has electrified a 
Kvhole theatre, and a cry of wo has wrung the heart with 
■more acute grief than the most pathetic writing ever ex- 
Pcited. 



4 INTRODUCTION. 

night." Lord Mansfield is said to have been in the habit y 
when young, of reciting Demosthenes's Orations, on his 
native mountains, and to have practised before Mr. Pope, 
as his corrector; accordingly, his melodious voice, and 
graceful action, seem to have made as deep an impression 
as the beauties of his style, and obtained him the appel- 
ation of "the silver-tongued Murray." When he first 
spoke in the Senate, Sir Robert Walpole said, " It was 
an address, which would have done honor to Cicero," — 
" Yes," added Pulteney, " and so also would the manner 
in which it was delivered." It is said, that Dean Kirwan, 
who was perhaps the most celebrated of our pulpit orators, 
and who, in several of his discourses for charitable pur- 
poses, obtained collections to the amount of seven or eight 
hundred pounds, was so deeply convinced of the im- 
portance of manner, as an instrument of persuasion in 
preaching, that he carefully studied and prepared every 
tone and gesture : and, in the after-effects, his well-modu- 
lated and commanding voice, his striking attitudes, and 
his varied emphatic action, mightily aided his " winged 
words," in melting, inflaming, terrifying, and overwhelm- 
ing his audience. It is agreed by all the contemporaries 
of Lord Chatham # , that no description could represent 
him adequately; that, to comprehend the force of his 
eloquence, it was necessaiy to see the man. All that 
Tufly included under the word "actio" was his. — " Et 
vocis et spiritus, et totius corporis, et ipsus linguae motus," 
were all such as to make the orator a part of his own 
eloquence. His mind was to be viewed in his counte- 
nance. So embodied was it in every look and gesture, 
that his words were rather to be felt than followed. They 
invested his hearers. The weapons of his opponents 
dropped from their hands. He spoke with the air and 
vehemence of inspiration ; and the very atmosphere flamed 
around him. As a proof of the expressiveness of his eye, 
we are told that Secretary Fox, his regular opponent, and 
surely not a man very likely to be subject to nervous 
alarms, was often seen, after the more important debates, 
walking with his hands in his pockets, all absorbed in 
reverie, and muttering to himself, — " that eye, that eye I" 



* See the British Review for June, 1822. 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

The high tones of his voice, were the most striking and 
heart-thrilling, and by his peculiar manner of pronouncing 
the single little word whig, he is said to have again and 
again electrified the house. Dr. Franklin has justly ob- 
served of the celebrated Whitefield*, that it would have 
been fortunate for his reputation, if he had left no written 
works ; his talents would then have been estimated by the 
effect which they are known to have produced ; for on this 
point, there is the evidence of witnesses, whose credibility 
cannot be disputed. Whitefield's writings of eveiy kind, 
are certainly below mediocrity. They afford the measure 
of his knowledge and of his intellect, but not of his genius 
as a preacher. His elocution was perfect. Sometimes he 
would set before his congregation the agony of our Savi- 
our, as though the scene were actually before them. 
" Look yonder ! " he would say, stretching out his hand, 
and pointing while he spoke, " what is it that I see? It 
is my agonized Lord! Hark, hark! do you not hear? 
O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me! 
Nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done ! " This he 
introduced frequently in his sermons; and one who lived 
with him, says, the effect was not destroyed by repetition : 
even to those who knew what was coming, it came as 
forcibly as if they had never heard it before. A man at 
Exeter stood with stones in his pocket, and one in his 
hand ready to throw at him; but he dropped it before the 
sermon was far advanced, and going up to him after the 
preaching was over, he said: — " Sir, I came to hear you, 
with an intention to break your head ; but God, through 
your ministry, has given me a broken heart." A ship- 
builder was once asked what he thought of him. " Think I" 
he replied, " I tell you sir, every Sunday that I go to my 
parish church, I can build a ship from stem to stern under 
the sermon; but, were it to save my soul, under White- 
field I could not lay a single plank." Hume pronounced 
him the most ingenious preacher he had ever heard; and 
said it was worth while to go twenty miles to hear him. 
But, perhaps, the greatest proof of his persuasive powers 
was, when he drew from Franklin's pocket, the money 
which that clear cool reasoner had determined not to give : 



See Southey's Life of Wesley. 



b INTRODUCTION. 

it was for the orphan-house at Savannah. " I did not," 
says the American philosopher, >" disapprove of the design; 
but as Georgia was then destitute of materials and work- 
men, and it was proposed to send them from Philadelphia 
at a great expense, I thought it would have been better 
to have built it at Philadelphia, and brought the children 
to it. This I advised, but he was resolute in his first pro- 
ject, rejected my counsel, and I therefore refused to con- 
tribute. I happened soon after, to attend one of his ser- 
mons, in the course of which, I perceived he intended to 
finish with a collection, and I silently resolved he should 
get nothing from me. I had in my pocket a handful of 
copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles 
in gold. As he proceeded, I began to soften, and con- 
cluded to give the copper; another stroke of his oratory 
made me ashamed of that, and determined me to give the 
silver; and he finished so admirably, that I emptied my 
pockets wholly into the collector's dish — gold and all." 
We have a signal instance of what can be accomplished 
by assiduity and perseverance, in the celebrated Irish ora- 
tor, Curran. According to all accounts, he had as many 
natural impediments to overcome, as the celebrated orator 
of antiquity. His enunciation was naturally so precipitate 
and confused, that he was denominated, among his com- 
panions, " Stuttering Jack Curran." So little promise 
was there at one time, of his shining as a public speaker, 
that one of his most intimate and confidential friends said 
to him, " that he had the highest opinion of his capacity, 
and that, if he would confine himself to the study of the 
law, he would, to a certainty, become a very eminent 
chamber counsel; but he might depend upon it, nature 
never intended him for an orator." Fortunately, however, 
for his fame, this advice was disregarded : he persevered 
against all opposition. His voice was shrill, and his ac- 
cent strongly provincial, or, to use his own words, in a 
state of nature; to surmount these defects, he set apart 
a portion of every day, for the purpose of reading and re- 
citing aloud, slowly and distinctly, some of the most 
eloquent extracts in the language; carefully observing to 
imitate, as much as he could, the tones and manner of the 
most beautiful speakers he had heard. The success of 
this exercise was so complete, that, among his most; 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

unrivalled excellencies as an orator, were the clearness of 
his articulation, and a peculiar uninterrupted, graduated 
intonation, which, whatever was the subject, whether 
tender or impassioned, melodised every sentence. His 
person was naturally without dignity or grace — short, 
slender, and inelegantly proportioned. He used to say 
himself, that the only inheritance he could boast of from 
his poor father, was the veiy scanty one of an unattractive 
face and person like his own. In order to attain an action 
that might conceal as much as possible these defects, he 
declaimed frequently before a mirror, and selected the 
gesticulation that he thought best adapted to his imperfect 
stature. We shall conclude these observations, with an 
extract from Austin's Chironomia, a work, incomparably 
the ablest treatise on delivery in general, that has yet ap- 
peared in our language. 

" With respect to the delivery of an orator, in all its 
refinement and necessary circumstances, the fact appears 
to be, that it belongs to no particular people, to the ex- 
clusion of others ; and that it is not the gift of nature more 
than other high acquirements ; but that it is the reward of 
arduous labor, under the guidance of consummate art. 
We admit the French to have more facility in learning 
this art than ourselves; the French allow the same supe- 
riority to the Italians, the Italians to the Greeks ; but, in 
truth, the gift is not gratuitous to any people. Gracchus 
labored incessantly, Cicero labored incessantly, Hortentius 
labored, Demosthenes, Eschines, Isocrates labored; — 
which of all the celebrated orators has not labored? or 
which of them can be said to owe his fame merely to the 
gift of nature, as the indigenous produce of the soil from 
which he sprung? If a standard of comparison could be 
found, hardly would the British actors, whose excellence 
is chiefly confined to this one branch of eloquence — 
delivery, — lose in comparison with either moderns or 
ancients of other nations; and what the talents, the 
industry, and the professional acquirements of our 
actors have accomplished, can we doubt would be ac- 
complished with equal success by our orators, if they 
brought into action equal industry, and equal professional 
learning? 



8 



INTRODUCTION. 



" It is not because the British orators are incapable of 
the most consummate perfection in the art of delivery, 
that this perfection is hardly to be seen among them; it 
is because perfection in this, as in all other arts, is a work 
of labor and of time. ,, 



THE 

PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION- 



PART L 



THE VOICE. 

The voice is the organ of eloquence, and has the entire 
dominion of one sense. All that articulate language and 
tones can effect to influence the understanding, and to 
win the affections, depend on the power of the voice ad- 
dressed to the ear. The countenance and gesture, ad- 
dress their mute language to the eye. The very name of 
eloquence is derived from the exertions of the voice, and 
where the voice fails, eloquence ceases to have living ex- 
istence, and may be found only in the dead letter. The 
qualities and the management of the voice, therefore, are 
of the highest importance to the public speaker: the for- 
mer are principally the gift of nature ; the latter, chiefly 
depends on art. 

That a voice decidedly imperfect, can by any art be so 
improved, as to answer every effort of oratory, is altogether 
hopeless ; but of whatever description the power or quali- 
ties of the voice may be, provided it be moderately good, 
and that the ear be not wholly depraved, they may be im- 
proved to a great extent by due cultivation. With proper 
management, few voices are so bad as not to be rendered 
capable of discharging tolerably the functions of public 
speaking in our assemblies; and few are to be found so 
perfect, as not to require some attention, or which may 
not derive some benefit from the observance of some gen- 
eral rules for the proper management of that organ. 



10 PRINCIPLES OP ELOCUTION. 



ARTICULATION. 

Purity of articulation is not only essential to a public 
speaker, but is of the utmost importance even in private 
conversation. The person who mumbles out his words 
in confused and broken accents, presents his hearer with 
only fragments of his meaning, and very frequently drives 
him to the disagreeable nonplus of interrupting his indis- 
tinct narrator, with a — " Sir?" — " I beg your pardon, 
Sir! will you please to repeat that, Sir?" — or some such 
significant expression. Almost every one is aware of the 
exquisite sensation which these puny interruptions occa- 
sion in both the speaker and the hearer. If, then, a clear 
distinct articulation be so very important in private con- 
versation, in a public speaker it becomes absolutely indis- 
pensable: indeed, its absence cannot be supplied or ex- 
cused, by any other qualification whatever. Without it, 
pathos and sublimity sink into ridicule, and passion into 
a confused jumble — a chaos of unintelligible sound. The 
want of this faculty is the less pardonable, because almost 
every person may, with proper attention, make himself 
master of it. A few perhaps may have some unconquer- 
able natural defect, but I am thoroughly convinced, that 
in at least ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, a bad artic- 
ulation is the result of habit, — contracted in youth, — 
strengthened and confirmed by practice. In the course 
of my professional practice, I have met with numerous 
instances of this vice in speaking (as every person in my 
line must do), and I can safely assert, that I have never 
yet met with any one, who, when he firmly resolved to 
get free of it, and employed the proper means, has not 
succeeded, even though opposed by some organic defect* 



MODULATION. 

The modulation of the voice is the proper management 
of its tones, so as to produce grateful melpdies to the ear. 
Upon the modulation of the voice, depends that variety 
which is so pleasing, and so necessary to refresh and 



PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 11 

relieve the ear in a long oration. The opposite fault is 
monotony, which becomes at last so disagreeable, as to 
defeat altogether the success of a public speaker (as far 
as to please is any part of his object), by exciting the 
utmost impatience and disgust in his audience. To the 
variety so grateful to the ear, not only change of tones is 
requisite, but also change of delivery. The force and 
rapidity of utterance ought to vary in compliance with 
the nature of the subject. Narration should proceed 
equably, the pathetic slowly, instruction authoritatively, 
argumentation with intensity, determination with vigor, 
and passion with force and rapidity. 

The art of varying the tones of the voice> not only 
affords pleasure and relief to the hearer, but, by the alter- 
nation of labor, relieves the speaker. The voice must be 
adapted to the subject and the feelings of the mind, so as 
not to be at variance with the expressions: — This is the 
great art 



TONES*. 

It was necessary to society, and to the state of human 
nature in general, that the language of the animal pas- 
sions, of man at least, should be fixed, self-evident, and 
universally intelligible; and it has accordingly been im- 
pressed, by the unerring hand of nature, on the human 
frame. All the affections and emotions, therefore, belong- 
ing to man in his animal state, are so distinctly character- 
ized, by certain marks, that they cannot be mistaken; and 
this language of the passions carries with it the stamp of 
its Almighty Artificer, — utterly unlike the poor work- 
manship of imperfect man; as it is not only understood by 
all the different nations of the world, without pains or 
study, but excites also similar emotions, or corresponding 
effects, in all minds alike. Thus, the tones expressive of 
soitow, lamentation, mirth, joy, hatred, anger, love, pity, 
&c. are the same in all nations, and, consequently, can 
excite emotions in us analogous to those passions, when 
accompanying words which we do not understand: nay, 

* See Sheridan's Lecture on Tones. 



12 PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION* 

the very tones themselves, independent of words, will 
produce the same effects, as has been amply proved by 
the power of musical instruments. And though these 
tones are usually accompanied by words, in order that 
the understanding may, at the same time, perceive the 
cause of these emotions, by a communication of the par- 
ticular ideas which excite them ; yet that the whole energy, 
or power of exciting analogous emotions in others, lies in 
the tones themselves, may be known from this, — that, 
whenever the force of these passions is extreme, words 
give place to inarticulate sounds. Sighs, murmurings, in 
love; sobs, groans, and cries, in grief; half-choked sounds, 
in rage ; and shrieks, in terror, — are then the only language 
heard. And the experience of mankind may be appealed 
to, whether these have not more power in exciting sym- 
pathy, than any thing that can be done by mere words. 

Nor has this language of the passions been confined to 
man only; for, in that respect, he seems to be included in 
the general law, given to all animals that are not mute, 
or wholly incapable of uttering any sound; as they also 
express their passions by certain tones, which, striking 
the auditory nerves of those of the same species, always 
produce corresponding effects ; inasmuch as their kindred 
organs are invariably tuned by the hand of nature, in uni- 
son to those sounds. But it is to be o'bserved, that each 
species of animals seem to have a language of their own, 
not at all understood, or felt, by the rest. The lowing of 
the cow affects not the lamb ; nor does the calf regard the 
bleating of the sheep. The neighing of the steed calls up 
all the attention of the horse kind; they gaze towards the 
place whence the sound comes, and answer it, or run that 
way, if the steed be not in view; whilst the cows and the 
sheep raise not their heads from the ground, but continue 
to feed, utterly unmoved. The organs of hearing, in each 
species, are tuned only to the sounds of their own ; and 
whilst the roaring of the lioness makes the forest tremble, 
it is the sweetest music to the ears of her young. 

As the passions and emotions of the several kinds of 
animals are very different, according to their different 
natures, so is there an equal diversity of tones, by which 
these several passions and emotions are expressed: — from 
the horrible roarings of the lion, to the gentle bleatings of 



PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 13 

the lamb; from the loud bellowings of the wild bull, to 
the low punings of the domestic cat. But, as there is no 
passion or emotion whatsoever, in the whole animal world, 
which is not to be found in man, so, equally comprehen- 
sive is the language of his passions, which are all mani- 
fested by suitable tones. The roaring of the lion is not 
more terrible than the voice of his anger; nor the cooings 
of the pigeon more soft than the murmurs of his love. 
The crowing of the morning cock is not so clear and 
sprightly, as the notes of his joy; nor the melancholy 
mournings of the turtle, so plaintive as those of his wo. 
The organs of hearing, therefore, in man, are so con- 
structed as not to be indifferent to any kind of tone, 
either in his own species, or in the animal world, that is 
expressive of emotion or passion: from all, they receive 
either pleasure or pain, as they are affected with sympathy 
or antipathy. But, extensive as are the powers of the 
human ear, those of the human voice do not fall short of 
them, but are exactly suited to them in degree and com- 
prehension. There is no tone which the ear can dis- 
tinguish, that the voice, by pains and practice, is not 
capable of uttering. Hence it comes to pass, that, as 
man understands the language of the different tribes of 
animals, so he can make himself understood by them. 
The horse rejoices in the applauding tones of his rider's 
voice, and trembles when he changes them to those of 
anger. What blandishments do we see in the dog, when 
his master soothes him in kind notes ! what fear, and even 
what shame, when he changes them to those of chiding! 
By those the waggoner directs his team, and the herdsman 
his flock. Even animals of the most savage nature, are 
not proof against the collective powers of the human 
voice ; and the shouts of a multitude will put wild beasts 
to flight, who can hear without emotion the roarings of 
the thunder. This far, we find that man, in his animal 
capacity, is furnished like all other animals, by nature 
herself, with a language, which requires neither study, 
art, nor mutation ; which spontaneously breaks out in the 
exactest expressions, nicely proportioned to the degrees of 
his inward emotions; and which is not only universally 
understood, but felt by those of the same species, as also, 
in some degree, by the rest of the animal world. 
c 



14 PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 

But when we come to examine the power of each, in 
their full extent, Ave shall find, that, though words are 
limited to their peculiar office, and never can supply the 
place of tones; yet tones, on the other hand, are not con- 
fined to their province, hut often supply the place of 
words, as marks of ideas. And tho the ease and dis- 
tinctness witli which our ideas are marked hy articulate 
sounds, has made all mankind agree to use them in dis- 
course, yet that tones are capable, in a great measure, of 
supplying their place, is clear from this ; that the Chinese 
language is chiefly made up of tones, and the same indi- 
vidual word shall have sixty different meanings, according 
to the different tones in which it is pronounced. Here, 
then, it is clear, that fifty-nine of the sixty ideas, are 
marked hy tones; for the same individual word, pro- 
nounced exactly in the same manner, cannot possibly, by 
itself, be a clear and distinct mark for more than one idea. 

Beside the use of tones, in the exertion of his animal 
and intellectual faculties, there is another part of man's 
nature which seems to be the link that joins the other 
two, a great part of whose exertions ^have their very 
essence, so far as they are communicated by the voice, in 
tones ; — I mean fancy. To one branch of this part of his 
frame, nature herself has furnished matter for a language, 
different in its land from all other, and peculiar to man — 
I mean, risibility ; and this matter, according to the ex- 
ertions of fancy, is to be modified into an infinity of 
shapes. There is a laugh of joy, and a laugh of ridicule ; 
there is a laugh of anger, and a laugh of contempt. Nay, 
there are few of our passions to winch fancy cannot 
adapt and associate this language. And should we trace 
it through all its several modifications and degrees, from 
the loud burst of joy, to the tones belonging to the dry 
sneer of contempt, we should find, that an extensive and 
expressive language, independent of words, belongs to this 
faculty alone. 



INFLEXIONS OF THE VOICE. 

The difference between speaking and musical sounds, 
i* ? that the latter remain for some specified time on one 



PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 15 

particular note, and leaps from one part of the scale to 

the other, thus, m •; while the former, instead of 

dwelling any time on the note they commence with, 
are perpetually sliding either upwards or downwards, 

thus, » ^A^. t From the ever- varying and rapid motion 

of speaking sounds, it was thought impossible by almost 
every one who attempted to illustrate the subject, before 
the time of the late celebrated Mr. Walker, to give any 
such distinct relation of them, as could be of any material 
advantage to the student of elocution. Mr. Walker, 
however, in his Elements of Elocution, has given a com- 
plete analysis of these sounds, and reduced them to two 
simple modifications, a downward and an upward slide, 
termed by him inflexions of the voice. He has also proved 
that, in many cases (always in the case of emphasis), these 
slides, or inflexions, have a most intimate connection with 
sense, and that the author's meaning may be absolutely 
perverted by the application of a wrong inflexion*. 

The tones of the passions are qualities of sound, oc- 
casioned by certain vibrations of the organs of speech, 
independent of high, low, loud, soft, quick, slow, forcible, 
or feeble: which last may very properly be called different 
quantities of sound. 

Though all the variety, force, beauty, and harmony, 
which a good reader is capable of throwing into composi- 
tion, when he enters into the spirit of his author, can be 
acquired by no other means than the force of example, 
influencing the imitative faculties of the learner; yet, when 
we consider, that, whether words are pronounced swiftly 
or slowly, forcibly or feebly, with the tone of the passion 
or without it, they must be pronounced sliding either up- 
wards or downwards, or in a monotonef, or song; — when 
we consider this, we shall find, that the primary division 
of speaking sounds, is into the upward and downward 
slides of the voice ; or a combination of the two, termed 
the circumflex £ ; and that, whatever other diversity of 



* See the Article on Emphasis, annexed to this compilation, 
f See Monotone. $ See Circumflex. 



16 PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION* 

time, tone, or force, is added to speaking, it must neces- 
sarily be conveyed by these slides, or inflexions. 

These inflexions, therefore, are the axis on which the 
variety of speaking turns, and may be termed the outlines 
of pronunciation; and these outlines bear the same pro- 
portion to delivery, that the rough, but correct sketch of 
a picture bears to the finished painting. 

The rising inflexion, is that upward turn of the voice 
which we generally use at a comma, to imply a continua- 
tion of sense; or in asking a question beginning with a 
verb: as, "Do you leave town to-day?"* The falling 
inflexion is generally used at the semicolon and colon, to 
imply a conclusion of sense; we would also make use of 
it in answer to the former question; as, " No: I do not." 



* The acute accent (') denotes the rising, and the grave accent £x) 
the falling inflexion; a combination of both is used to denote the cir- 
cumflex (k). 



PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 



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18 PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 

PRAXIS ON THE INFLEXIONS. 

What is done cannot be undone. 

He who is good before invisible witnesses, is emi- 
nently so before the visible. 

There is a material difference between giving and for- 
giving. 

I shall always make reason, truth, and nature, the 
measures of praise and dispraise. 

Religion raises men above themselves ; irreligion sinks 
them beneath the brutes. 

This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this 
mortal must put on immortality. 

The riches of the prince must increase or decrease in 
proportion to the number and riches of his subjects. 

He that compares what he has done with what he has 
left undone, will feel the effect which must always follow 
the comparison of imagination with reality. 

In this species of composition plausibility is much more 
essential than probability. 

Lucius Cataline was expert in all the arts of simula- 
tion and dissimulation. 

In the suitableness or unsuitableness, in the proportion 
or disproportion which the affection seems to bear to the 
cause or object which excites it, consist the propriety or 
impropriety, the decency or ungracefulness of the con- 
sequent action. 

Grief is the counter passion of joy. The one arises 
from agreeable, the other from disagreeable events, — the 
one from pleasure, the other from pain, — the one from 
good, the other from evil. 

The wise man is happy when he gains his own appro- 
bation, and the fool when he recommends himself to the 
applause of those about him. 

Alfred seemed born not only to defend his bleeding 
country, but even to adorn humanity. His care was to 
polish the country by arts, as he had protected it by arms. 

A friend cannot be known in prosperity, and an enemy 
cannot be hidden in adversity. 

The difference between a madman and a fool, is, that 
the former reasons justly from false data ; and the latter, 
erroneously from just data. 



PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 19 

The foulest stain and scandal of our nature 
Became its boast. One murder makes a villain, 
Millions a hero. War its thousands slays, 
Peace its ten thousands. 

Passions are winds to urge us o'er the wave, 
Reason the rudder to direct and save ; 
This without those, obtains a vain employ, 
Those without this, but urge us to destroy. 

He raised a mortal to the skies, 
She drew an angel down. 



RULES. 

I. Questions commencing with verbs, adopt the rising 
inflexion. 

II. Questions commencing with pronouns or adverbs, 
adopt the falling inflexion. 

III. Antithetic* questions require opposite inflexions. 

IV. When questions are followed by answers, the ques- 
tion should be pronounced in a high tone of voice, and, 
after a suitable pause, the answer returned in a low and 
firm tone. 

V. Negative sentences, and members of sentences, a- 
dopt the rising inflexion.-)- 

VI. A concession should end with the rising inflexion. 

VII. The first principal division of a direct period (or 
compact sentence), should end with the rising inflexion, 
and a smart percussion of the voice. 

VIII. The first member of an antithesis should have 
the rising, and the opposite the falling inflexion. 

IX. Members forming perfect sense within themselves, 
generally adopt the falling inflexion. 

X. A parenthesis must always be pronounced differently 
from its relative sentence, generally quicker and lower. \ 



* Antithesis means opposition of words or sentences — contrast. 

\ Sometimes a positive assumes the form of a negative sentence : it 

then, of course, adopts the falling inflexion; as, " Thou shalt not steals' ' 

\ When the language in the parenthesis is more impassioned than the 

rest of the sentence, the pronunciation ought, of course, to be equally 

impassioned, as, 

" A ball now hisses through the airy tides, 
(Some fury wings it, and some demon guides,) 
Parts the fair locks, her graceful head that deck'd, &c. 



20 PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 

Exercises on the Preceding Rules. 

Rule I. Can the rush grow up without mire ? can the 
flag grow without water ? 

Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be 
burnt? can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burnt? 

Is it not a sure sign of intolerable arrogance and vene- 
mous envy, where the tongue is continually exercised in 
perverting, slandering, defacing, deriding, and condemn- 
ing other people's words and works ? 

Do you think that Themistocles, and the heroes who 
were killed in the battles of Marathon and Platea; do 
you think the very tombs of your ancestors will not send 
forth groans, if you crown a man, who, by his own con- 
fession, has been for ever conspiring with barbarians to 
ruin Greece ? 

But did you, Oh! (what title shall I give you!) did 
you betray the least shadow of displeasure against me, 
when I broke the chords of that harmony in your presence, 
and dispossessed the commonwealth of the advantages of 
that confederacy, which you now magnify so much, with 
the loudest strains of your theatrical voice? did you 
ascend the rostrum ? did you denounce, or once explain 
those crimes, with which you are now pleased to charge 
me? 

What was the part of a faithful citizen ? of a prudent, 
an active, and honest minister ? Was he not to secure 
Eubea, as our defence against all attacks by sea ? Was 
he not to make Beotia our barrier on the midland side ? 
The cities bordering on Peloponnesus, our bulwark on that 
quarter ? Was he not to attend with due precaution to 
the importation of corn, that this trade might be protected 
throughout all its progress up to our own harbours ? Was 
he not to cover those districts which we commanded, by 
seasonable detachments, as the Preconesus, the Cherso- 
nesus, and Tenedos ? To exert himself in the assembly 
for this purpose ? While, with equal zeal, he labored to 
gain others to our interest and alliance, as Byzantium, 
Abydus, and Eubea? Was he not to cut off the best 
and most important resources of our enemies, and to sup- 
ply those in which our country was defective ? — And all 
this you gained by my counsels and my administration. 



PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 21 

Rule II. Who yet has been able to comprehend and 
describe the nature of the soul ? — its connexion with the 
body, or in what part of the frame it is situated ? 

Oh, why is it possible that this greatest inhabitant of 
every place where men are living, should be the last whose 
society they seek, or of whose being constantly near them 
they feel the importance ? 

Why is it possible to be surrounded with the intelli- 
gent Reality, which exists wherever we are, with attri- 
butes that are infinite, and not feel respecting all other 
things, winch may be attempting to press on our minds 
and affect their character, as if they retained with diffi- 
culty their shadows of existence, and were continually on 
the point of vanishing into nothing ? 

Why is this stupendous Intelligence so retired and si- 
lent, while present over all the scenes of the earth, and 
in all the paths and abodes of men ? 

Why does he keep his glory invisible behind the shades 
and visions of the material world ? 

Why does not this latent glory sometimes beam forth 
with such a manifestation as could never be forgotten, nor 
ever be remembered without an emotion of religious 
fear? 

Why is it possible for feeble creatures to maintain their 
little dependent beings fortified and invincible in sin, a- 
midst the presence of divine purity ? 

Why does not the thought of such a being strike through 
the mind, with such intense antipathy to evil, as to blast 
with death every active principle that is beginning to per- 
vert it, and render gradual additions of depravity, grow- 
ing into the solidity of habit, as impossible, as for perish- 
able materials to be raised into structures amidst the fires 
of the last day ? 

How is it possible to forget the solicitude, which should 
accompany the consciousness that such a being is continu- 
ally darting upon us the beams of observant thought ? 

WTio is it that causes tins river to rise in the high moun- 
tains, and to empty itself in the ocean ? Who is it that 
causes to blow the loud winds of winter, and that calms 
them again in the summer ? Who is it that rears up the 
shade of those lofty forests, and blasts them with the 
quick lightning at his pleasure ? — The same Being who 



22 PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 

gave to you a country on the other side of the waters, 
and gave ours to us, — and by this title we will defend 
it. 

How is a tribunal, whose whole jurisdiction is founded 
upon the solemn belief and practice of what is here denied 
as falsehood, and reprobated as impiety, to deal with such 
an anomalous defence ? Upon what principle is it even 
offered to the court, whose authority is contemned and 
mocked at ? If the religion proposed to be called in ques- 
tion, is not previously adopted in belief, and solemnly act- 
ed upon, what authority has the court to pass any judg- 
ment at all of acquittal or condemnation ? Why am I 
now, or upon any other occasion, to submit to his lord- 
ship's authority ? Why am I now, or at any other time, 
to address twelve of my equals, as I am now addressing 
you, with reverence and submission ? 

Rule III. Shall we, in your person, crown the author 
of the public calamities, or shall we destroy him ? 

Is the goodness or wisdom of the Divine Being more 
manifested in this his proceeding ? 

Had you rather Csesar were living, and die all slaves ; 
than that Csesar were dead, to live all freemen? 

But should these credulous infidels, after all, be in the 
right, and this pretended revelation be all a fable, from 
believing it, what harm could ensue ? Would it render 
princes more tyrannical, or subjects more ungovernable ? 
The rich more insolent, or the poor more disorderly? 
Would it make worse parents or children ; husbands or 
wives ; masters or servants ; friends or neighbours ; or % 
would it not make men more virtuous, and, consequently, 
more happy in every situation ? 

Rule IV. Art thou poor ? show thyself active and in- 
dustrious, peaceable, and contented : art thou wealthy ? 
show thyself beneficent and charitable, condescending 
and humane. 



* In the former parts of this passage, or is used conjunctively, and is 
equivalent to and ; each member, therefore, must terminate with the 
rising inflexion. The latter part (commencing with — or would it not 
make men more virtuous], is antithetic to the former, consequently, the 
voice changes from the rising to the falling inflexion. 



PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 23 

You have obliged a man ; very well ! is not the con- 
sciousness of doing good a sufficient reward? 

Searching every kingdom for the man who has the least 
comfort in life, where is he to be found ? — In the Royal 
Palace. What ! his Majesty ? — Yes : especially if he be 
despotic. 

How shall those vacant spaces, those unemployed in* 
tervals, which, more or less, occur in the life of every one, 
be filled iip ? How* can we contrive to dispose of them 
in any way that shall be more agreeable in itself, or more 
consonant to the dignity of the human mind, than in the 
entertainments of taste, or the study of polite literature ? 

Rule V. It is not by starts of application, or by a few 
years' preparation of study, afterwards discontinued, that 
eminence can be attained. No ; it can be attained only 
by means of regular industry grown up into a habit, f and 
ready to be exerted on eveiy occasion that calls for in- 
dustry. 

Virtue is of intrinsic value and good desert ; not the 
creature of will, but necessary and immutable ; not local 
or temporary, but of equal extent and antiquity with the 
divine mind; not a mode of sensation, but everlasting 
truth ; not dependent on power, but the guide of all power. 

All is magnificent in the objects of religion. All her 
views comport with the highest faculties of our nature. 
Her features awaken our most lively sensibility. Delici- 
ous sentiments mingle themselves with the grand thoughts 
she inspires. She displays her celestial origin, her celes- 
tial destination. It is not to small portions of time, a few 
years, a few generations, a few ages, that our speculations 
are here limited ; they embrace eternity. They are not 
finite beings like ourselves, with whom we hold inter- 
course. It is with a being, who has for attributes, abso- 
lute perfection; for limits, immensity itself. It is no 
longer the assemblage of a few objects, frivolous, uncer- 
tain, and of dubious quality, that we seek. It is happi- 
ness complete, solid, perfect in its nature, and infinite in 
its duration, like God himself. 

* In this sentence, the latter part is evidently an answer to the former, 
f The positive part of the sentence, of course, adopts the falling in- 
flexion. 



24 PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 

Rule VI. One may be a speaker, both of much repu- 
tation and much influence, in the calm argumentative man- 
ner ; to attain the pathetic and the sublime of oratory, re- 
quires those strong sensibilities of mind, and that high 
power of expression, which are given to few. 

Reason, eloquence, and every art, which has ever been 
studied among mankind, may be abused, and may prove 
dangerous in the hands of bad men ; but it were perfectly 
childish to contend, that, upon this account, they ought 
to be abolished. 

Were there no bad men in the world to vex and distress 
the good, the good might appear in the light of harmless 
innocence ; but they could have no opportunity of dis- 
playing fidelity, magnanimity, patience, and fortitude. 

Rule VII. As, in speaking, we generally use that 
tone of voice, which is most expressive of our passion and 
emotion,* so, in reading, we ought as much as possible, 
to imitate the variety of speaking, by taking eveiy oppor- 
tunity of altering the voice according to the sense. 

As, while hope remains, there can be no full and posi- 
tive misery ; so, while fear is yet alive, happiness is in- 
complete. 

As the greater and more irreparable the evil that is 
done, the resentment of the sufferer runs naturally the 
higher ; so does likewise the sympathetic indignation of 
the spectator, as well as the sense of guilt in the agent. 

As the rude and untaught multitude are no way wrought 
upon more effectually, than by seeing public punishments 
and executions ; so, men of letters and education feel 
their humanity most forcibly exercised, when they attend 
the obsequies of men who had arrived at any perfection 
in liberal accomplishments. 

If our language, by means of the simple arrangement 
of its words, possesses less harmony, less beauty, and less 
force than the Greek or Latin ; it is, however, in its mean- 
ing, more obvious and plain. 



* A direct period always consists of two principal divisions, neces- 
sarily depending on each other for sense ; and these divisions are fre- 
quently, though not always, joined together by corresponding con- 
junctions. 



PRINCIPLES OP ELOCUTION. 25 

Whether we consider poetry in particular, and discourse 
in general, as imitative or descriptive ; it is evident, that 
their whole power, in recalling the impressions of real 
objects, is derived from the significancy of words. 

When the mountains shall be dissolved; when the 
foundations of the earth and the world shall be destroy- 
ed ; when all sensible objects shall vanish away ; he will 
still be the everlasting God ; he will be when they exist 
no more, as he was when they had no existence at all. 

If impudence prevailed as much in the forum and 
courts of justice, as insolence does in the country and 
places of less resort, Aulus Cecina would submit as much 
to the impudence of Sextus Ebutius in this cause, as he 
did before to his insolence when he assaulted him.* 

Rule VIII. Homer was the greater genius ; Virgil the 
better artist : in the one, we most admire the man ; in 
the other, the work. Homer hurries us with a command- 
ing impetuosity ; Virgil leads us with an attractive ma- 
jesty. Homer scatters with a generous profusion ; Vir- 
gil bestows with a careful magnificence. Homer, like the 
Nile, pours out his riches with a sudden overflow; Vir- 
gil, like a river in its banks, with a constant stream. 

Compare the one's impatience with the other's mild- 
ness; the one's insolence with the other's submission; the 

* The only exception to this rule, is, when a concession is implied in 
the first division, and an appeal is made to the conscience in the second. 
In that case, the first member adopts the falling, and the second the ris- 
ing, inflexion. 

Examples. 

If we have regard for religion in youth x , we ought to have some re- 
gard for it in age'. 

If we have no regard for our own x character, we ought to have some 
regard for the character of others'. 

In each of these sentences, the speaker, after yielding to his opponent 
in the former part, appeals to his conscience in the latter; as, "I grant 
that he is so depraved as to have no regard to his own character, but I 
appeal to your conscience whether he ought not to have some regard to 
the character of others." 

If these sentences had been so constructed as to make the latter mem- 
ber a mere inference from, or consequence of the former, the general rule 
would have taken place; as, 

If we have no regard for religion in youth', we have seldom any regard 
for it in age v . 

If we have no regard for our own' character, it can scarcely be expected 
L that we could have any for the character of others^. 
D 



26 PRINCIPLES OP ELOCUTION. 

one's humility with the others indignation; and tell me> 
whether he that conquered seemed not rather confounded, 
than he that yielded any thing discouraged; or, set the 
one's triumph against the other's captivity, loss against vic- 
tory, feasts against wounds, a crown against fetters, and 
the majesty of courage will appear in the overthrown. 

Rule IX. Human affairs are in continual motion and 
fluctuation, altering their appearance every moment,* and 
passing into some new form. 

The scenes which present themselves at our entering 
upon the world, are commonly flattering. Whatever they 
be in themselves, the lively spirit of the young gilds every 
opening prospect. The field of hope appears to stretch 
wide before them. Pleasure seems to put forth its blos- 
soms on eveiy side. Impelled by desire, forward they 
rush with inconsiderate ardor; prompt to decide and to 
choose ; averse to hesitate or to inquire ; credulous, be- 
cause untaught by experience ; rash, because unacquaint- 
ed with danger ; headstrong, because unsubdued by dis- 
appointment : hence arise the perils to which they are 
exposed ; and which, too often, from want of attention to 
faithful admonition, precipitate them into ruin irretrievable.. 

He who is of a cowardly mind, is, and must be, a slave 
to the world. He fashions his whole conduct according 
to its hopes and fears. He smiles, and frowns, and be- 
trays from abject considerations of personal safety. He 
is incapable of either conceiving or executing any great 
design. He can neither stand the clamor of the multi- 
tude, nor the frowns of the mighty. The wind of popular 
favor, or the threats of power, are sufficient to shake his 
most determined purpose. The world always knows where 
to find him ; he may pretend to have principles ; but on 
every trying occasion, it will be seen, that his pretended 
principles bend to convenience and safety. 

Rule X. If envious people were to ask themselves, 
whether they would exchange their situations with the 
persons envied (I mean, their minds, passions, notions* 
as well as their persons, fortunes, and dignities), I believe 



* The penultimate member should always have the rising inflexion. 



PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 27 

the self-love common to human nature, would generally 
make them prefer their own condition. 

Notwithstanding all this care of Cicero, history informs 
us that Marcus proved a mere blockhead; and that na- 
ture (who, it seems was even with the son for her prodi- 
gality to the father), rendered him incapable of improving, 
by all the rules of eloquence, the precepts of philosophy, 
his own endeavors, and the most refined conversation in 
A'thens. 

Ye know how we exhorted, and comforted, and charged 
every one of you (as a father does his children), that you 
would walk worthy of God, who hath called you into his 
kingdom and glory. 

Promiscuous Exercises on the preceding Rules* 

She was attended, on one hand, by a troop of cooks and 
bacchanals ; and, on the other, by a train of wanton youths 
and damsels, who danced half-naked to the softest musical 
instruments: Her name was Intemperance. She waved 
her hand, and thus addressed the crowd of diseases: 
Give way, ye sickly band of pretenders, nor dare to vie 
with my superior merits in the service of this great mo- 
narch (Death). Am I not your parent? the author of 
your beings? Do you not derive the power of shorten- 
ing human life almost wholly from me? 

The first and most important female quality, is sweet- 
ness of temper. Heaven did not give to the female sex 
insinuation and persuasion, in order to be surly; it did 
not make them weak, in order to be imperious ; it did 
not give them a sweet voice, in order to be employed in 
scolding; it did not provide them with delicate features, 
in order to be disfigured with anger. 

As a great part of your happiness is to depend on the 
connexions which you form with others, it is of high im- 
portance that you acquire betimes the temper and the 
manners which will render such connexions comfortable. 

Where can any object be found so proper to kindle our 
affections, as the Father of the universe, and the author of 
all felicity? Unmoved by veneration, can you contem- 
plate that grandeur and majesty which his works every 
where display? Untouched by gratitude, can you view 
that profusion of good, which his beneficent hand pours 
around you? 



28 PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION, 

The style of Dryden is capricious and varied; that of 
Pope is cautious and uniform. Dryden obeys the motions 
of his own mind; Pope constrains his mind to his rules 
of composition. Dryden is sometimes vehement and rapid ; 
Pope is always smooth, uniform, and gentle. Drydens 
page is a natural field, rising into inequalities, and diver- 
sified by the varied exuberance of abundant vegetation ; 
Pope's is a velvet lawn, shaven by the scythe, and levelled 
by the roller. If the flights of Dryden are higher, Pope 
continues longer on the wing. If of Drydens fire the 
blaze is brighter; of Pope's the heat is more regular and 
constant. Dryden often surpasses expectation, and Pope 
never falls below it. Dryden is read with frequent asto- 
nishment, and Pope with perpetual delight. 

As there is a worldly happiness, which God perceives 
to be no other than disguised miseiy ; as there are worldly 
honors, which, in his estimation, are reproach; so there is 
a worldly wisdom, which, in his sight, is foolishness. 

Is it credible, is it possible, that the mighty soul of a 
Newton should share exactly the same fate with the vilest 
insect that crawls upon the ground; that after having laid 
open the mysteries of nature, and pushed its discoveries 
almost to the very boundaries of the universe, it should, on 
a sudden, have all its lights at once extinguished, and sink 
into everlasting darkness and insensibility? 

The wise ministers and brave warriors who flourished 
during her reign, share the praise of her success ; but, in- 
stead of lessening the applause due to her, they make 
great addition to it. 

If our language, by reason of the simple arrangement 
of its words, possess less harmony, less beauty, and less 
force than the Greek or Latin;" it is, however, in its 
meaning, more obvious and plain. 

Owe heaven a death! — 'Tis not due yet; and I would 
be loth to pay him before his day. What need I be so 
forward with him that calls not on me? Well, 'tis no 
matter— honor pricks me on. But how if honor prick 
me off when I come on? how then? Can honor set to a 
leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief 
of a wound? No. Honor hath no skill in surgery then? 
No. What is honour? A word. What is that word 
honor? Air. — A trim reckoning. Who hath it? He 



PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 29 

that died on Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth 
he hear it? No. Is it insensible then? Yea, to the 
dead. But will it not live with the living? No, Why? 
Detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I'll none of it. 
Honor is a mere 'scutcheon — and so ends my catechism. 

At the same time that I think discretion the most use- 
ful talent that a man can be master of, I look upon cun- 
ning to be the accomplishment of little, mean, ungenerous 
minds. Discretion points out the noblest ends to us, and 
pursues the most proper and laudable methods of attain- 
ing them ; cunning has only private selfish aims, and sticks 
at nothing which may make them succeed: Discretion 
has large and extended views, and, like a well-formed 
eye, commands a whole horizon; cunning is a kind of 
short-sightedness, that discovers the minutest objects 
which are near at hand, but is not able to discern things 
at a distance. 

The opera (in which action is joined with music, in or- 
der to entertain the eye at the same time with the ear), I 
must beg leave (with all due submission to the taste of 
the great) to consider as a forced conjunction of two 
things which nature does not allow to go together. 

Do the perfections of the Almighty lie dormant? Does 
he possess them as if he possessed them not? Are they 
not rather in continual exercise? 

An elevated genius employed in little things, appears 
(to use the simile of Longinus) like the sun in his evening 
declination ; he remits his splendor, but retains his mag- 
nitude ; and pleases more, though he dazzles less. 

To measure all reason by our own, is a plain act of in- 
justice ; it is an encroachment on the common rights of 
mankind. 

Who are the persons that are most apt to fall into 
peevishness and dejection? that are continually complain- 
ing of the world, and see nothing but wretchedness around 
them? Are they those whom want compels to toil for 
their daily bread? who have no treasure but the labor of 
their hands? who rise with the rising sun to expose them- 
selves to all the rigors of the seasons, unsheltered from the 
winters cold, or unshaded from the summer's heat? No. 
The labors of such are the veiy blessings of their condi- 
tion. 



30 PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 

It is idle, as well as absurd, to impose our opinions 
upon others. The same ground of conviction operates 
differently on the same man, in different circumstances, 
and on different men, in the same circumstance, 

I have always preferred cheerfulness to mirth. The 
latter I consider as an act, the former as a habit of the 
mind. Mirth is short and transient, cheerfulness fixed 
and permanent. Those are often raised into the greatest 
transports of mirth, who are subject to the greatest de- 
pressions of melancholy. On the contrary, cheerfulness, 
though it does not give the mind such an exquisite glad- 
ness, prevents us from falling into any depth of sorrow. 
Mirth is like a flash of lightning, that breaks through a 
gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness 
keeps up a kind of day-light in the mind, and fills it with 
a steady and perpetual serenity. 

Think not that the influence of devotion is confined to 
the retirement of the closet, and the assemblies of the 
saints. Imagine not, that, unconnected with the duties 
of life, it is suited only to those enraptured souls, whose 
feelings, perhaps, you deride, as romantic and visionary. 
It is the guardian of innocence, — it is the instrument of 
virtue, — it is a mean by which every good affection may 
be formed and improved. 

What is the blooming tincture of the skin, 

To peace of mind and harmony within? 

What the bright sparkling of the finest eye, 

To the soft soothing of a calm reply? 

Can comeliness of form, or shape, or air, 

With comeliness of words, or deeds, compare? 

No: those at first, the unwary heart may gain; 

But these — these only, can the heart retain. 



PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 31 



«ww»iw fmm yw<M W >(M M> i +* 



PART II. 



fWWWW W W KWW * 



SERIES 

Denotes an enumeration of particulars. 

A commencing series begins, but does not end, a 
sentence. 

A concluding series is that which ends a sentence, 
whether it begins it or not. 

A series consisting of one word in each particular, is 
called a simple series. 

A series, where each member is compounded of seve- 
ral words, is called a compound series. 

Rule XI. The ultimate member of a commencing 
series should end with the rising inflexion, and a smart 
percussion of the voice : the preceding members should be 
varied according to the taste of the reader. 

Rule XII. The penultimate member of a concluding 
series should have the rising inflexion; the preceding 
ones should be varied according to the taste of the reader. 

Examples of the Commencing Series. 

Joy, grief, love, admiration, devotion, are all of them 
passions which are naturally musical. 

Hatred, shyness, discords, seditions, and wars, are 
created by ambition. 

The presence, knowledge, power, wisdom, and good- 
ness of God, must all be unbounded. 

Next then, you authors, be not you severe; — 

Why, what a swarm of scribblers have we here! 

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 

All in one row, and brothers of the pen. 



32 PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 

Discomposed thoughts, agitated passions, and a ruffled 
temper, poison every pleasure of life. 

The verdant lawn, the shady grove, the variegated 
landscape, the boundless ocean, and the starry firmament, 
are contemplated with pleasure by every beholder. 

A contemplation of God's works, a voluntary act of 
justice to our own detriment, a generous concern for the 
good of mankind, tears shed in silence for the misery of 
dthers, a private desire of resentment broken and subdued, 
an unfeigned exercise of humility, or any other virtue, are 
such actions as denominate men great and reputable. 

To acquire a thorough knowledge of our own hearts 
and characters, to restrain every irregular inclination, to 
subdue every rebellious passion, to purify the motives of 
our conduct, to form ourselves to that temperance which 
no pleasure can seduce, to that meekness which no pro- 
vocation can ruffle, to that patience which no affliction 
can overwhelm, and that integrity which no interest can 
shake; this is the task which is assigned to us, — a task 
which cannot be performed without the utmost diligence 
and care. 

The brightness of the sky, the lengthening of the days, 
the increasing verdure of the spring, the arrival of any 
little piece of good news, or whatever carries with it, the 
most distant glimpse of joy, is frequently the parent of a 
social and happy conversation. 

Examples of the Concluding Series, 

Mankind are besieged by war, famine, pestilence, vol- 
cano, storm, and fi v re. 

The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, 
gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. 

Mr. Locke's definition of wit, with this short explica- 
tion, comprehends most of the species of wit; as meta- 
phors, enigmas, mottos, parables, fables, dreams, visions, 
dramatic writings, burlesque, and all the methods of 
allusion. 

Sincerity is to speak as we think, to do as we pretend 
and profess, to perform and make good what we promise, 
and really to be what we would seem and appear to be. 

No blessing of life is any way comparable to the enjoy- 
ment of a discreet and virtuous friend; it eases and un- 



PRINCIPLES OP ELOCUTION. 33 

loads the mind, clears and improves the understanding, 
engenders thoughts and knowledge, animates virtue and 
good resolutions, soothes and allays the passions, and 
finds employment for most of the vacant hours of life. 

Should the greater part of people sit down and draw 
up a particular account of their time, what a shameful bill 
it would be! So much in eating, drinking, and sleeping, 
beyond what nature requires; so much in revelling and 
wantonness ; so much for the recovery of last night's in- 
temperance; so much in gaming, plays, and masquerades; 
so much in paying and receiving formal and impertinent 
visits ; so much in idle and foolish prating, in censuring 
and reviling of our neighbours; so much in dressing out 
our bodies, and in talking of fashions ; and so much wasted 
and lost in doing nothing at all. 

True gentleness teaches us to bear one another's bur- 
dens; to rejoice with those who rejoice; to weep with 
those who weep ; to please every one his neighbour for 
his good; to be kind and tender-hearted; to be pitiful 
and courteous; to support the weak; and to be patient 
towards all men. 



CIRCUMFLEX. 

Rule XIII. The rising circumflex begins with the 
falling and ends with the rising inflexion on the same 
syllable; and seems, as it were, to twist the voice up- 
wards; as, 

To mediate for the queen? — You undertook? 

Most courteous tyrants :— Romans ! — rare patterns of 
humanity ! 

Rule XIV. The falling circumflex begins with the 
rising, and ends with the falling inflexion on the same 
syllable. 

So, then, you are the author of this conspiracy against 
me? — It is to you that I am indebted for all the mischief 
that has befallen me. 

Madam, you have my father much offended*. 



* Both these inflexions are used in ironical reproach. 



34 PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION* 



MONOTONE. 

Rule XV. Monotone, in the strictest application of 
the term, implies a continued sameness of sound, similar 
to that produced by repeatedly striking a bell. Such a 
sound may have degrees of loudness or softness, but con- 
tinues exactly in the same pitch. It is chiefly used to 
denote something awful or sublime. 

Examples. 

O when he comes, 
Roused by the cry of wickedness extreme 
To heaven ascending from some guilty land, 
Now ripe for vengeance ; when he comes arrayed 
In all the terrors of Almighty wrath ; 
Forth from his bosom plucks his lingering arm, 
And on the miscreants pours destruction down, 
Who can abide his coming? Who can bear 
His whole displeasure? 

But ah! what means that ruinous roar? why fail 
These tottering feet? Earth to its centre feels 
The Godhead's power, and trembling at his touch 
Through all its pillars, and in every pore, 
Hurls to the ground with one convulsive heave, 
Precipitating domes, and towns, and towers, 
The work of ages*. 



ELIPTICAL MEMBER. 

Rule XVI. Is a part of a sentence equally related to 
two parts of an antithesis; and is pronounced in a feeble 
tone, accompanied with the inflexion of voice belonging 
to that part of the antithesis immediately preceding it. 



* There are three kinds of monotony, against the practice of which, 
we warn every person who wishes to become an elegant reader. The 
first is, a continual perseverance in the same modulation of voice; the 
second, a too great resemblance in the close of periods ; the third, a too 
frequent repetition of the same inflexion. 



PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 35 

Examples. 

Shall we, in your person, crown the author of the public 
calamities, or shall we destroy him? 

Shall we, in your person, crown, or shall we destroy 
the author of the public calamities. 

In the above sentence, " crown" and " destroy" are the 
two governing words; — in the first example, the eliptical 
member (the author of the public calamities) is pronounced 
in a feeble tone, and with the rising inflexion, as belonging 
to the governing word (" crown") immediately before it. 
For the same reason, it adopts the falling inflexion in the 
second example, as belonging to the governing " destroy.'* 

Examples. 

A good man will love himself too well to lose, and his 
neighbour too well to win, an estate by gaming. 

It would be in vain to inquire whether the power of 
imagining things strongly proceeds from any greater per- 
fection in the soul, or from any nicer texture in the brain, 
of one man than of another. 



REPETITION. 

Rule XVII. The repeated word should be pronounced 
with the rising inflexion, accompanied with some degree 
of animation, and distinguished by a suitable pause. 

Example. 
With " mysterious reverence" I forbear to descant on 
those serious and interesting rites, for the more august 
and solemn celebration of which Fashion nightly convenes 
these splendid myriads to her more sumptuous temples. 
Rites'! which, when engaged in with due devotion, ab- 
sorb the whole soul, and call every passion into exercise, 
except those indeed of love and peace, and kindness, and 
gentleness. Inspiring' rites! which stimulate fear, rouse 
hope, kindle zeal, quicken dulness, sharpen discernment, 
exercise memory, inflame curiosity! Rites'! in short, in 
the due performance of which, all the energies and atten- 
tions, all the powers and abilities, all the abstractions and 



36 ' PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 

exertion, all the diligence and devotedness, all the sacri- 
fice of time, all the contempt of ease, all the neglect of 
sleep, all the oblivion of care, all the risks of fortune (half 
of which, if directed to their true objects, would change 
the very face of the world), all these are concentrated to 
one point: a point'! in which the wise and the weak, the 
learned and the ignorant, the fair and the frightful, the 
sprightly and the dull, the rich and the poor, the patrician 
and the plebeian, meet in one common uniform equality : 
an equality'! as religiously respected in these solemnities, 
in which all distinctions are levelled at a blow, and of 
which the very spirit is therefore democratical, as it is 
combated in all other instances. 



HARMONIC INFLEXION, OR GENERAL 
EMPHASIS. 

Rule XVIII. This kind of emphasis is regulated solely 
by the taste and feelings of the reader; and therefore ad- 
mits of no particular rule. It is susceptible of various de- 
grees of energy in the delivery, according to the force and 
animation of the sentiments ; and consists in a reciprocal 
application of the rising and falling inflexions, producing 
on the ear a very pleasing and forcible variety. It some- 
times takes place at the beginning, sometimes in the mid- 
dle, but most frequently near the conclusion of a sentence. 

Examples. 

Since I have mentioned this unaccountable zeal which 
appears in atheists and infidels ; I must farther observe, 
that they are likewise in a most particular manner pos- 
sessed with the spirit of bigotry. They are wedded to 
opinions full of contradiction and impossibility, and, at the 
same time, look upon the smallest difficulty in an article 
of faith as a sufficient reason for rejecting it. 

We may learn from this observation, which we have 
made on the mind of man, to take particular care, when 
we have once settled in a regular course of life, how we 
too frequently indulge ourselves in any, the most innocent 
diversions and entertainments; since the mind may insen- 



PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 37 

sibly fall off from the relish of virtuous actions, and by 
degrees exchange that pleasure, which it takes in the per- 
formance of its duty, for delights of a much more inferior 
and unprofitable nature. 

There was a time, my fellow-citizens, when the Lacede- 
monians were sovereign masters both by sea and land ; when 
their troops and forts surrounded the entire circuit of At- 
tica; when they possessed Eubea, Tanagra, the whole Beo- 
tian district, Megara, Egina, Cleone, and the other islands, 
while this state had not one ship — no, not one' wall\ 
Produces fraud, and cruelty, and strife, 
And robs the guilty world of Cato's life. 

What men could do, 
Is done already: heaven and earth will witness, 
If Rome s must fall', that we are innocent. 



CLIMAX. 

Rule XIX. A climax is a gradual amplification of the 
sense, the strength increasing as the sense proceeds. It 
requires a gradually increasing swell of the voice on each 
succeeding member, accompanied with a degree of ani- 
mation corresponding with the force of the sentiment. 

Examples. 

Since concord was lost, friendship was lost, fidelity was 
lost, liberty was lost, all was lost. 

Would you pardon him, whom the senate hath con-' 
demned, whom the people of Rome have condemned, 
whom all mankind have condemned. 

There is no enjoyment of property, without a govern- 
ment; no government, without a magistrate; no magi- 
strate, without obedience ; no obedience, where every one 
acts as he pleases. 

Add to your faith, virtue ; and to virtue, knowledge ; 
and to knowledge, temperance ; and to temperance, pa- 
tience; and to patience, godliness; and to godliness, 
brotherly-kindness; and to brotherly-kindness, charity. 

It is pleasant to be virtuous and good, because that is 
to excel many others ; it is pleasant to grow better, be- 

E 



38 PRINCIPLES OP ELOCUTION. 

cause that is to excel ourselves ; it is pleasant to mortify 
and subdue our lusts, because that is victory; it is plea- 
sant to command our appetites and passions, and to keep 
them in due order, within the bounds of reason and reli- 
gion, because that is empire. 

I conjure you by that which you profess, 

(Howe'er you come to know it) answer me: 

Tho you untie the winds and let them fight 

Against the churches; tho the yesty waves 

Confound and swallow navigation up; 

Tho bladed corn be lodg'd and trees blown down; 

Tho castles topple on their warder's heads; 

Tho palaces and pyramids do slope 

Their heads to their foundations ; tho the treasure 

Of nature's germins tumble altogether, 

Even till destruction sicken, answer me 

To what I ask you. 

The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, 

The solemn temples, the great globe itself; 

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve ; 

And, like the baseless fabric of a vision, 

Leave not a wreck behind. 

Exercises on the Rules of Part II 
Gratian very often recommends the line taste as the 
utmost perfection of an accomplished man. As this word 
arises very often in conversation, I shall endeavor to give 
some account of it ; and to lay down rules how we may 
know whether we are possessed of it, and how we may 
acquire that fine taste of writing which is so much talked 
of among the polite world. 

The child is a poet, when he first plays at hide-and-seek, 
or repeats the story of Jack the Giant-killer; the shep- 
herd-boy is a poet, when he first crowns his mistress with 
a garland of flowers; the countryman, when he stops to 
look at the rainbow; the city-apprentice, when he gazes 
after the Lord Mayor s show; the miser, when he hugs his 
gold; the savage, who paints his idol with blood; the 
slave, who worships a tyrant, or the tyrant, who fancies 
himself a god; — the vain, the ambitious, the proud, the 
choleric man, the hero and the coward, the beggar and 
the king, the rich and the poor, the young and the old; 



PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 39 

all live in a world of their own making ; and the poet does 
no more than describe, what all the others think and act. 
If his art is folly and madness, it is folly and madness at 
second-hand. " There is warrant for it. " 

And tells of witching rhymes 
And evil spirits ; of the death-bed call 
To Mm who robb'd the widow, and devour'd 
The orphan's portion ; of unquiet souls 
Risen from the grave to ease the heavy guilt 
Of deeds in life conceal'd ; of shapes that walk 
At dead of night, and clank their chains, and wave 
The torch of hell around the murderer's bed. 

But it is foolish in us to compare Drusus Africanus 
and ourselves, with Clodius; all our other calamities 
were tolerable, but no one can patiently bear the death of 
Clodius. 

I do not so much request, as demand, your attention. 

Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate ; and 
whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom 
he called, them he also justified ; and whom he justified, 
them he also glorified. 

Few moments are more pleasing than those in which 
the mind is concerting measures for a new undertaking. 
From the first hint that wakens the fancy, to the hour of 
actual execution, all is improvement and progress, triumph 
and felicity. Every hour brings additions to the original 
scheme, suggests some new expedient to secure success, 
or discovers consequential advantages not hitherto fore- 
seen. While preparations are made and materials accu- 
mulated, day glides after day through Elysian prospects^ 
and the heart dances to the song of hope. 

I knew when seven justices could not make up a quar- 
rel; but when the parties were met themselves, one of 
them thought but of an If; as if you said so, then I said 
so : O ho ! did you say so ? So they shook hands and 
were sworn brothers. 

Leviculus was so well satisfied with his own accom- 
plishments, that he determined to commence fortune- 
hunter; and when he was set at liberty, instead of begin- 
ning, as was expected, to walk the Exchange with a face 
of importance, or of associating himself with those who 
were most eminent for their knowledge of the stocks, he 



40 PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 

at once threw off the solemnity of the counting-house? 
equipped himself with a modish wig and a splendid coat, 
listened to wits in the coffee-houses, passed his evenings 
behind the scenes in the theatres, learned the names of 
beauties of quality, hummed the last stanzas of fashionable 
songs, talked with familiarity of high play, boasted of his 
achievements upon drawers and coachmen, told with ne- 
gligence and jocularity of bilking a tailor, and now and 
then let fly a shrewd jest at a sober citizen. 

If we would have the kindness of others, we must en- 
dure their follies. He who cannot persuade himself to 
withdraw from society, must be content to pay a tribute 
of his time to a multitude of tyrants ; — to the loiterer, who 
makes appointments he never keeps; — to the consulter, 
who asks advice which he never takes; — to the boaster, 
who blusters only to be praised; — to the complainer, who 
whines only to be pitied; — to the projector, whose hap- 
piness is to entertain his friends with expectations which 
all but himself knows to be vain; — to the economist, who 
tells of bargains and settlements; — to the politician, who 
predicts the consequence of deaths, battles, and alliances; — 
to the usurer, who compares the state of the different 
funds; — and to the talker, who talks only because he loves 
to be talking. 

I am persuaded, that neither life, nor death, nor angels, 
nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor 
things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other crea- 
ture, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, 
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

In the path to glory, Christians, you are compassed 
about with a great cloud of witnesses, who are at once 
the spectators and the examples of your virtue. 

Newton was a christian! Newton! whose mind burst 
forth from the fetters cast by nature on our finite concep- 
tions — Newton, whose science was truth, and the founda- 
tion of whose knowledge of it was philosophy ; not those 
visionary and arrogant presumptions which too often usurp 
its name, but philosophy resting on the basis of mathema- 
tics, which, like figures, cannot lie — Newton! who carried 
the line and rule to the utmost barriers of creation, and 
explored the principles by which, no doubt, all created 
matter is held together and exists. 






PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 41 

For, if you pronounce, that, as my public conduct hath 
Hot been right, Ctesiphon must stand condemned, it must 
fee thought that yourselves have acted wrong, not that you 
owe your present state to the caprice of fortune. But it 
cannot be. No, my countrymen! it cannot be you have 
acted wrong, in encountering danger bravely, for the li- 
berty and safety of Greece! No! by those generous souls 
of ancient times, who were exposed at Marathon! by those 
who stood arrayed at Platea! by those who encountered 
the Persian fleet at Salamis! who fought at Artemesium! 
By all those illustrious sons of Athens, whose remains lie 
deposited in the public monuments! All of whom re- 
ceived the same honorable interment from their country: 
Not those only who prevailed, not those only who were 
victorious. And with reason. What was the part of gal- 
lant men they all performed; their success was such as 
the Supreme Director of the world dispensed to each. 

As trees and plants necessarily arise from seeds, so are 
you, Anthony, the seed of this most calamitous war. — 
You mourn, O Romans, that three of your armies have 
been slaughtered — they were slaughtered by Anthony: 
You lament the loss of your most illustrious citizens — 
they were torn from you by Anthony: the authority of this 
order is deeply wounded-— it is wounded by Anthony: — 
in short, all the calamities we have ever since beheld, (and 
what calamities have we not beheld!) have been entirely 
owing to Anthony. As Helen was of Troy, — so the bane, 
the misery, the destruction of this state is— Anthony! 

But the deceit is short, is fruitless. The amazed spirit 
is about to dislodge. Who shall speak its terror and dis- 
may? Then he cries out in the bitterness of his soul; — 
" what capacity has a diseased man, what time has a dy- 
ing man, what disposition has a sinful man, to acquire 
good principles, to unlearn false notions, to renounce bad 
practices, to establish right habits, to begin to love God, 
to begin to hate sin! How is the stupendous concern of 
salvation to be worked out by a mind incompetent to the 
most ordinary concerns!" — 

The infinite importance of what he has to do — the goad- 
ing conviction that it must be done — the utter inability 
of doing it — the dreadful combination in his mind of both 
the necessity and incapacity — the despair of crowding the 



42 PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 

concerns of an age into a moment — the impossibility of be- 
ginning a repentance which should have been completed — 
of setting about a peace which should have been conclud- 
ed — of suing for a pardon which should have been ob- 
tained; — all these complicated concerns — without strength, 
without time, without hope, with a clouded memory, a 
disjointed reason, a wounded spirit, undefined terrors, re- 
membered sins, anticipated punishment, an angry God, 
an accusing conscience, all together, intolerably augment 
the sufferings of a body which stands in little need of the 
insupportable burthen of a distracted mind to aggravate 
its torments. 

"What think you 'twas set up 
The Greek and Roman name in such a lustre, 
But doing right in stem despite of nature, 
Shutting their ears tc all her little cries. 
When great august and godlike justice call'd. 
At Aulis one pour'd out a daughter s life, 
And gain'd more glory than by all his wars; 
Another slew a sister in just rage ; 
A third — the theme of all succeeding times, — 
Gave to the cruel axe a darling son : 
Nay, more, for justice some devote themselves, 
As he at Carthage, an immortal name ! 
Yet there is one step left above them all, 
Above their history, above their fable ; 
A wife, bride, mistress, unenjoyd! 
Do that, and tread upon the Greek and Roman glory* 

'Tis list'ning fear and dumb amazement all, 
When to the startled eye the sudden glance 
Appears far south, eruptive through the cloud; 
And following slower in explosion vast, 
The thunder raises his tremendous voice. 
At first heard solemn o'er the verge of heaven, 
The tempest growls : but as it nearer comes, 
And rolls its awful burden on the wind, 
The lightnings flash a larger curve, and more 
The noise astounds ; till over head a sheet 
Of livid flame discloses wide; then shuts 
And opens wider; shuts and opens still, 
Expansive, wrapping ether in a blaze : 
Follows the loosen'd aggravated roar, 



PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 43 

Enlarging, deepening, mingling; peal on peal 
Crush'd horrible, convulsing heaven and earth. 

In this our day of proof, our land of hope, 
The good man has his clouds that intervene ; 
Clouds that may dim his sublunary day, 
But cannot darken; even the best must own, 
Patience and resignation are the pillars 
Of human peace on earth. 

*Tis education forms the common mind; 
Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclin'd. 
Boastful and rough, your first son is a squire : 
The next a tradesman, meek and much a liar : 
Tom struts a soldier, open, bold, and brave ; 
Will sneaks a scrivener, an exceeding knave. 
Is he a churchman? then he's fond of power; 
A quaker? sly; a presbyterian? sour; 
A smart freethinker? All things in an hour. 

See what a grace was seated on this brow: 
Hyperion's curls ; the front of Jove himself; 
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command ; 
A station like the herald Mercury 
New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill; 
A combination and a form indeed, 
Where every god did seem to set his seal, 
To give the world assurance of a man. 

At thirty, man suspects himself a fool ; 
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan; 
At fifty, chides his infamous delay; 
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve, 
In all the magnanimity of thought ! 
Resolves, and re-resolves, then — dies the same. 

A brave man struggling in the storms of fate, 
And greatly falling with a falling state. 



44 PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 



PART III. 



EMPHASIS. 

Rule XX. Emphasis is an earnest, vehement, or ex- 
press signification of one's mind: it is a form of speech 
that indicates more than is expressed by words, and can 
be comprehended only from some peculiar and significant 
manner of pronunciation. 

An assemblage of words in a sentence does not express 
the author's meaning individually ', but collectively. We 
must generally employ a number of words to express one 
idea; and upon finding out the principal word in that 
number, and placing the principal accent upon it, wholly 
depends the developement of the true idea. 

Example. 

" O fools, and slow of heart, to believe all that the pro- 
phets have written concerning me." 

If, in reading this sentence, the emphasis be placed on 
" believe," the meaning conveyed will be — that Christ 
called them fools for believing. If the emphasis be re- 
moved to " all" " O fools, and slow of heart, to believe 
all that the prophets, &c." the meaning implied will be — 
that it was folly in the disciples to believe all. The sense 
is equally perverted by placing the emphasis on "prophets." 
" O fools, and slow of heart, to believe all that the prophets 
have written, &c." This would imply that the prophets 
were in no respects worthy of belief. The true meaning 
is expressed by placing the principal accent on the word 
" slow" " O fools, and slow of heart (that is — backward) 
to believe, &c." 

After the proper emphatic word is ascertained, the 
next tiling to be discovered, is the particular inflexion of 



PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 45 

voice which should accompany that word; for, as the 
meaning is absolutely perverted by placing the emphasis 
on a wrong word, so is it equally perverted by putting 
a wrong inflexion on the right word. 

Examples. 
1. He would not hurt aj#y. | 2. He would not hurt &fly s . 

The meaning conveyed by the first method of pronounc- 
ing the above sentence is, not that the person alluded to, 
was incapable of hurting any, or a more noxious creature, 
but that he would not hurt so innocent a creature as &Jly 9 
at least. If the reader wished to convey the idea of a per- 
son possessed of unbounded humanity and benevolence, he 
would adopt the second method. The meaning then con- 
veyed would be, that the person was incapable of hurting 
any creature : for he would surely never hurt a creature 
of more importance, when he would not hurt so insignifi- 
cant a creature as a fly. 

The antithesis suggested by Ex. 1. is a more noxious 
creature; and the paraphrase of it would be as follows. 
u However he might deal with a more noxious animal, 
he would not hurt so imiocent a creature as a fly, at 
least." 

The antithesis to Ex. 2. is a man, or any other crea- 
ture superior to a fly; paraphrased thus: "He would 
not only not hurt a man, but he would not hurt even a 

to" 

The distinction between the two emphatic inflexions is, 
that what is affirmed of the emphasis with the rising in- 
flexion, is left doubtful with regard to the antithesis; 
while the emphasis with the falling inflexion is positive, 
and affirms the same thing of the antithesis, that is af- 
firmed of the emphasis; as may be seen by a careful ex- 
amination of the above paraphrases. 



Ex. III. 
Enter not into judgment 
with thy servant, O Lord! 
for in thtf sight no man liv- 
ing can be justified 



Ex. IV. 

Enter not into judgment 
with thy servant, O Lord! 
for in thy" sight no man liv- 
ing can be justified. 



If the falling, in place of the rising inflexion, be put on 
the last "thy" in the above sentence, instead of paying 



46 PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 

any awful or superior deference to the Almighty, it would 
be the greatest reproach that could possibly be cast upon 
him; as the falling inflexion on the word thy, would im- 
ply meanness or insignificancy. 

Paraphrases of the above passage. 
Ex. IV. 
Enter not into judgment 
with thy servant, O Lord! 
for, not only in the sight of 
superior, or more enlight- 
ened creatures, but even in 
thy s sight, — -insignificant and 
short-sighted as thou art — 
even in thine, no man living 
can be justified. 



Ex. III. 
Enter not into judgment 
with thy servant, O Lord! 
for, however, men may be 
regarded in the sight of o- 
ther, or inferior creatures; 
in thy' sight, which is all- 
piercing, and can spy the 
smallest blemish, no man 
living, can be justified. 



Example V> 

By the joys 
Which yet my soul has uncontrol'd pursued, 
I would not turn aside from my least pleasure, 
Tho all thy' force were arm'd to bar my way. 
In this example, the antithesis to the emphatic part 
" thy force/ 1 is, the force of others: — the emphasis with 
the rising inflexion on the word "thy," implying that, 
" However Lothario might be restrained by the force of 
others (superior), Horatio's force, at least, was too insig- 
nificant to control him." If the falling inflexion be put 
on the emphatic word " thy," instead of contempt or 
sneer, a very high compliment will be paid to Horatio 
and his force; for it would be equivalent to saying, " I 
would not turn aside from my least pleasure, not only tho 
common force, but even tho thy force, great as it is, were 
armed to bar my way." 

Promiscuous Examples on Emphasis. 

Some of them were covered with such extravagant 
epitaphs, that, if it were possible for the dead person to 
be acquainted with them, he would bluslt at the praises 
which his friends have bestowed upon him. 

An Italian philosopher expressed in his motto, that time 
ivas his estate; an estate indeed, which will produce no- 






PRINCIPLES OP ELOCUTION. 47 

thing without cultivation, but will always abundantly re- 
pay the labors of industry, and satisfy the most extensive 
desires, if no part of it be suffered to lie waste by negli- 
gence, to be overrun with noxious plants, or laid out for 
show, rather than for use. 

And think not to say within yourselves, " We have 
Abraham to our father;" for I say unto you, that God is 
able of these stones^ to raise up children unto Abraham. 
The bell strikes one. We take no note of time, 
But from its loss. To give it then a tongue, 
Is wise in man. As if an angel" spoke, 
I feel the solemn sound. 

Yet, if we look more closely, we shall find 
Most have the seeds! of judgment in their mind. 

'Twas base and poor, unworthy of a man\ % 
To forge a scroll so villanous and loose, 
And mark it with a noble lady's name ! 

To reign is worth ambition, tho in hell. 
Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven y . 
With the talents of an angel"* a man may be a fool. 
I would die K sooner than mention it. 



* It lias been contended, by a late eminent compiler (see Elocutionist, 
by J. S. Knowles, Esq. page 28), that the emphasis with the rising in- 
flexion has no antithesis; and he has adduced this example in support of 
his argument. I beg it may not be imputed to any malevolence, arising 
from professional rivalship, on my part, when I dissent from this princi- 
ple. Mr. K. observes, that:—" In reasoning upon this example, Mr. 
Walker, by the most palpable contradiction, refutes his own theory. 
He says, * this inflexion intimates, that something is affirmed of the 
emphatic, which is not denied of the antithetic object;' and this posi- 
tion he thus illustrates, or proves — 

Unworthy of a man, though not unworthy of a brute. 
Is this affirming, or not denying, of the subject brute, what is affirmed of 
the subject man? Is the alleged act unworthy of both the brute and the 
man? Assuredly not ! The implied antithetic subject, brute, is here po- 
sitively excluded; and Mr Walker has absolutely attributed to the weak 
emphasis, what he asserts to be the sole — the characteristic property of 
the strong emphasis ! Nothing less could be expected. His premiss 
was false. All emphasis has not an antithesis either expressed or under- 
stood, or else the rising and the falling emphasis are the same; or, if not 
the same, the former has no antithesis*' 3 

These remarks, so far as they are applicable to the paraphrase of this 
sentence, are perfectly correct, but they do not affect the sentence itself* 
Mr. Walker, by inadvertently admitting the adverb not into this para- 
phrase, has rendered the assertion 2)ositive with respect to the antithetic 
subject brute, — whereas the peculiar characteristic of the emphasis with 
$he rising inflexion, is, as I have already stated (see p. 45), that what is 



48 PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION, 

Exercises on Emphasis.j 

A man of a polite imagination, is let into a great many 
pleasures that the vulgar are not capable of receiving; he 
can converse with a picture, and find an agreeable com- 
panion in a statue* 

If God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them 
down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, 
to be reserved unto judgment; how much less will he 
spare the wicked, who walk after the flesh in the lusts of 
uncleanness. 

We know the passions of men: we know how danger- 
ous it is to trust the best of men with too much power. 

Oh! you and I have heard our fathers say, there was a 
Brutus once, that would have the infernal devil to keep 
his state in Home, as easily as a king. 



affirmed of the emphasis is left doubtful of the antithesis. The truth is, 
that the seeming deviation in this example, from Walker's general rule, 
arises altogether from the clashing nature of the two negatives ; which, 
in English, are equal to an affirmative- This may easily be seen from 
the following paraph: 

" However worthv it was of a brute, it was w?? worth v of a man\ at 
least." 

*•' It might be worthy of a brute, but . worthy of a man', at 

least." 

" Whether it was, or was not. worthy of a brute, I will not say; but 
I positively affirm, that it was unworthy of a man', at least." 

It will readily be perceived by any one who has but even a superficial 
knowledge of the nature of inflexions, that, in each of the above para- 
phrases, what is positively affirmed of the emphatic object man, is nei- 
ther affirmed or denied positively of the antithetic object brute : the reader 
is left to draw what inference he pleases. So, we may conclude that 
Walker's "premiss" is strictly correct: — That all emphasis has an an- 
tithesis, either expressed or understood — that the rising and the falling 
emphasis are not the same; and though not the same, the former as well 
as the latter has an antit 

f The are designed for tests of the pupil's know": 

emphatic inflexion. The emphatic words are printed in Italics ; and the 
learner, by way of exerci-insr his skill, should be required by his teacher 
to point out the proper irmexion : this may easily be ascertained by at- 
tending to the following rule: — JFhen the emphatic word will admit the 
adverb mrmm before it, then it should invariably have the falling, when 
ruot, it should have the rising inflexion. To this rule there is no excep- 
tion. It may not here be improper to remark that, — whenever a word 
occurs requiring the strong emphasis, and, of course, the falling inflexion, 
it destroys the force of any other rule : it forms an exception to all— to 
itself there is no exception— it is supreme* 



PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 49 

My voice is still for war. Gods ! can a Roman senate 
long debate which of the two to choose, slavery or death ! 

Thou talk st it well: no leader of our host in sounds 
more lofty talks of glorious war. 

Greece in her single heroes strove in vain: now hosts 
oppose thee, and thou must be slain. 

I would rather be the first man in that village than the 
second in Rome. 



Exceptions 
To Rule I. Since those days wherein the Son of God acted and taught, 
and his Evangelists recorded, what has been the increase of the everlast- 
ing Gospel? Hath that righteousness, which is intended to cover the 
earth as the waters cover the sea, made much progress during the last 
fifteen centuries ? Hath it made any^ ? Is the number, even of nominal 
Christians, greater now than it was in the fourth century? Of all this, 
there is sufficient reason to doubt. 

To Rule X. Had I, when speaking in the assembly, been absolute 
and independent master of affairs, then your other speakers might call 
me to account. But if ye were ever present, if you were all in general 
invited to propose your sentiments, if ye were all agreed that the mea- 
sures then suggested were really the best ; if you, Eschines, in particular, 
were thus persuaded, (and it was no partial affection for me that prompted 
you to give me up the hopes, the applause, the honors, which attended 
that course I then advised, but the superior force of truth, and your utter 
inability to point out any more eligible^ course), if this was the case, I 
say, is it not highly cruel and unjust to arraign those measures now, 
when you could not then propose any better? 

His spear' (to equal which the tallest pine 

Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast 

Of some great admiral, were but a wand>) 

He walked with to support uneasy steps 

Over the burning marie. 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 



On Benevolence* 

The veiy softness and tenderness of this sentiment, its 
engaging endearments, its fond expressions, its delicate at- 
tentions, and that flow of mutual confidence and regard 
which enters into a warm attachment of love and friend- 
ship, being delightful in themselves, are necessarily com- 
municated to the spectators, and melt them into the same 
fondness and delicacy. The tear naturally starts in our 
eye, on the apprehension of a warm sentiment of this na- 
ture. Our breast heaves, our heart is agitated, and every 
humane, tender principle of our frame is set in motion, 
and gives us the purest and most satisfactory enjoyment. 

No qualities are more entitled to the general good-will 
and approbation of mankind, than beneficence and hu- 
manity, friendship, and gratitude, natural affection and 
public spirit, or whatever proceeds from a tender sympathy 
with others, and a generous concern for our kind and spe- 
cies. These, wherever they appear, seem to transfuse 
themselves, in a manner, into every beholder; and to call 
forth, in their own behalf, the same favorable and affec- 
tionate sentiments which they excite in all around. 

The species of self-love which displays itself in kind- 
ness to others, you must allow to have great influence over 
human actions, and even greater, on many occasions, than 
that which remains in its original shape and form ; for how 
few are there, who, having a family, children, and rela- 
tions, do not spend more on the maintenance and educa- 
tion of these than on their own pleasures ! This, indeed, 
may proceed from their self-love; since the prosperity of 
their family and friends is one, or the chief, of their plea- 
sures, as well as their honor. Be yov> also one of these 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 51 

selfish men, and you are sure of every one's good opinion 
and good- will: the self-love of every one, and mine among 
the rest, will then incline us to serve you, and speak well 
of you.* Hume. 



Discontent, the common Lot of all Mankind* 

Such is the emptiness of human enjoyment, that we are 
always impatient of the present. Attainment is followed 
by neglect, and possession by disgust. Few moments are 
more pleasing than those in which the mind is concerting 
measures for a new undertaking. From the first hint that 
wakens the fancy, to the hour of actual execution, all is 
improvement and progress, triumph and felicity. Every 
hour brings additions to the original scheme, suggests 
some new expedient to secure success, or discovers con- 
sequential advantages not hitherto foreseen. While pre- 
parations are made and materials accumulated, day glides 
after day through Elysian prospects, and the heart dances 
to the song of hope. 

Such is the pleasure of projecting, that many content 
themselves with a succession of visionary schemes, and 
wear out their allotted time in the calm amusement of 
contriving what they never attempt or hope to execute. 

Others, not able to feast their imagination with pure 
ideas, advance somewhat nearer to the grossness of action, 
with great diligence collect whatever is requisite to their 
design, and, after a thousand researches and consultations, 
are snatched away by death, as they stand waiting for a 
proper opportunity to begin. 

If there were no other end of life, than to find some 
adequate solace for every day, I know not whether any 
condition could be preferred to that of the man who in- 
volves himself in his own thoughts, and never suffers ex- 
perience to show him the vanity of speculation; for no 
sooner are notions reduced to practice, than tranquillity 
and confidence forsake the breast; every day brings its 



* The inflexions on these lessons, are intended, not so much to distin- 
guish accented or emphatic words, as to assist the learner in acquiring a 
variety of modulation, and a thorough command of his voice. 



52 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS* 

task, and often without bringing abilities to perform it : 
difficulties embarrass, uncertainty perplexes, opposition 
retards, censure exasperates, or neglect depresses. We 
proceed, because we have begun; we complete our design, 
that the labor already spent may not be vain: but as ex- 
pectation gradually dies away, the gay smile of alacrity 
disappears, we are necessitated to implore severer powers, 
and trust the event to patience and constancy. 

When once our labor has begtin, the comfort that en- 
ables us to endure it is the prospect of its end ; for tho in 
eveiy long work there are some joyous intervals of self- 
applause, when the attention is recreated by unexpected 
facility, and the imagination soothed by incidental excel- 
lencies not comprised in the first plan, yet the toil with 
which performance struggles after idea, is so irksome and 
disgusting, and so frequent is the necessity of resting be- 
low that perfection which we imagined within our reach, 
that seldom any man obtains more from his endeavours 
than a painful conviction of his defects, and a continual 
resuscitation of desires which he feels himself unable to 
gratify. 

So certainly is weariness and vexation the concomitant 
of our undertakings, that every man, in whatever he is 
engaged, consoles himself with the hope of change. He 
that has made his way by assiduity and vigilance to pub- 
lic employment, talks among his friends of nothing but the 
delight of retirement: he whom the necessity of solitary 
application secludes from the world, listens with a beating 
heart to its distant noises, longs to mingle with living be- 
ings, and resolves, when he can regulate his hours by his 
own choice, to take his fill of merriment and diversions, 
or to display his abilities on the universal theatre, and en- 
joy the pleasures of distinction and applause. 

Every desire, however innocent or natural, grows dan- 
gerous, as by long indulgence it becomes ascendant in the 
mind. When we have been much accustomed to consider 
any thing as capable of giving happiness, it is not easy to 
restrain our ardor, or to forbear some precipitation in our 
advances and irregularity in our pursuits. He that has long 
cultivated the tree, watched the swelling bud, and open- 
ing blossom, and pleased himself with computing how 
much every sun and shower added to its growth, scarcely 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 53 

stays till the fruit has obtained its maturity, but defeats 
his own cares by eagerness to reward them. When we 
have diligently labored for any purpose, we are willing 
to believe that we have attained it, and, because we have 
already done much, too suddenly conclude that no more 
is to be done. 

All attraction is increased by the approach of the at- 
tracting body. We never find ourselves so desirous to 
finish, as in the latter part of our work, or so impatient 
of delay, as when we know that delay cannot be long. 
Part of this unseasonable importunity of discontent may 
be justly imputed to langor and weariness, which must 
always oppress us more as our toil has been longer con- 
tinued; but the greater part usually proceeds from fre- 
quent contemplation of that ease which we now consider 
as near and certain, and which, when it has once flattered 
our hopes, we cannot suffer to be longer withheld. 

Rambler. 



Sun- Set 
" This is the evening on which, a few days ago, we 
agreed to walk to the Bower at the Waterfall, and look 
at the perfection of a Scottish sim-set. Every thing on 
earth and heaven seems at this hour as beautiful as our 
souls could desire it." They reached the Bower just as 
the western heaven was in all its glory. To them, while 
they stood together gazing on that glow of fire that burns 
without consuming, and in whose mighty furnace the 
clouds and the mountain-tops are but as embers, there 
seemed to exist no sky, but that region of it in which 
their spirits were entranced. Their eyes saw it, — their 
souls felt it; but what their eyes saw, or their souls felt, 
they knew not in the mystery of that magnificence. The 
vast black bars, — the piled-up masses of burnished gold, — 
the beds of softest saffron and richest purple, lying sur- 
rounded with continually fluctuating dyes of crimson, till 
the very sun himself was for moments unheeded in the 
gorgeousness which his light had created, — the show of 
storm, but the feeling of calm over all that tumultuous yet 
settled world of cloud that had come floating silently and 



54 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 

majestically together, and yet, in one little hour", was to 
be no more; — what might not beings endowed with a 
sense of beauty, and greatness, and love, and fear, and 
terror, and eternity feel, when drawing their breath toge- 
ther, and turning their steadfast eyes on each other's faces, 
in such a scene as this? 



On the Love of Fame. 

Extract from a Letter from Mustapha Rub-a-Dub Keli Khan, to Asem 
Hacchem, Principal Slave-driver to His Highness the Bashaw of Tripoli. 

Among the variety of principles by which mankind are 
actuated, there is one\ my dear Asem, which I scarcely 
know whether to consider as springing from grandeur and 
nobility of mind, or from a refined species of vanity and 
egotism. It is that singular, although almost universal, 
desire of living in the memory of posterity; of occupying 
a share of the world's attention, when we shall long since 
have ceased to be susceptible either of its praise or censure. 
Most of the passions of the mind are bounded by the 
grave; — sometimes, indeed, an anxious hope or trembling 
fear, will venture beyond the clouds and darkness that 
rest upon our mortal horizon, and expatiate in boundless 
futurity; but it is only this active love of fame which 
steadily contemplates its fruition, in the applause or 
gratitude of future ages. Indignant at the narrow limits 
which circumscribe existence, ambition is for ever strug- 
gling to soar beyond them; to triumph over space and 
time, and to bear a name, at least, above the inevitable 
oblivion in which every thing else that concerns us must 
be involved. It is this, my friend, which prompts the 
patriot to his most heroic achievements; which inspires 
the sublimest strains of the poet, and breathes ethereal 
fire into the productions of the painter and the statuary. 

For this, the monarch rears the lofty column; the 
laurelled conqueror claims the triumphal arch; while the 
obscure individual, who moved in an humbler sphere, askk 
but a plain and simple stone to mark his grave, and bear 
to the next generation this important truth, that he was 
born, died, and was buried. It was this passion which 
once erected the vast Numidian piles, whose ruins we 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 55 

have so often regarded with wonder, as the shades of 
evening — fit emblems of oblivion — gradually stole over 
and enveloped them in darkness. It was this which gave 
being to those sublime monuments of Saracen magnifi- 
cence, which nod in mouldering desolation, as the blast 
sweeps over our deserted plains. How futile are all our 
efforts to evade the obliterating hand of time! As I 
traversed the dreary wastes of E v gypt, on my journey to 
Grand Cairo, I stopped my camel for a while, and con- 
templated in awful admiration, the stupendous pyramids. 
An appalling silence prevailed around — such as reigns in 
the wilderness when the tempest is hushed, and the beasts 
of prey have retired to their dens. The myriads that had 
once been employed in rearing these lofty mementos of 
human vanity, whose busy hum once enlivened the soli- 
tude of the desert, had all been swept from the earth by 
the irresistible arm of death — all were mingled with their 
native dust — all were forgotten ! Even the mighty names 
which these sepulchres were designed to perpetuate, had 
long since faded from remembrance : history and tradition 
afforded but vague conjectures, and the pyramids imparted 
a humiliating lesson to the candidate for immortality. — 
Alas ! alas ! said I to myself, how mutable are the founda- 
tions on which our proudest hopes of future fame are 
reposed! He who imagines that he has secured to him- 
self the meed of deathless renown, indulges in deluding 
visions, which only bespeak the vanity of the dreamer. 
The storied obelisk — the triumphal arch — the swelling 
dome — shall crumble into dust, and the names they would 
preserve from oblivion shall often pass away before their 
own duration is accomplished. Washington Irvine. 



Christianity defended against Scepticism. 

Locke and Bayle. 

Bayle. — Yes; we both were, philosophers; but my 
philosophy was the deepest. You dogmatised; I doubted. 

Locke — Do you make doubting a proof of depth in 
philosophy? It may be a good beginning of it; but it is 
a bad ending. 



56 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 

Bayle. — No; the more profound our researches are 
into the nature of things, the more uncertainty we shall 
find; and the most subtle minds see objections and diffi- 
culties in every system, which are overlooked or undis- 
coverable by ordinary understandings. 

Locke. — It would be better, then, to be no philosopher, 
and to continue in the vulgar herd of mankind, that one 
may have the convenience of thinking that one knows 
something. I find that the eyes which nature has given 
me, see many things very clearly, though some are out of 
their reach, or discerned but dimly. What opinion ought 
I to have of a physician who should offer me an eye- 
water, the use of which would at first so sharpen my 
sight, as to cany it farther than ordinary vision; but 
would, in the end, put out my eyes? Your philosophy 
to the eyes of the mind, is what I have supposed the 
doctor's nostrum to be to those of the body. It actually 
brought your own excellent understanding, which was by 
nature quick- sighted, and rendered more so by art and 
subtilty of logic peculiar to yourself — it brought, I say, 
your very acute understanding to see nothing clearly; and 
enveloped all the great truths of reason and religion in the 
mists of doubt. 

Bayle. — I own it did ; but your comparison is not just. 
I did not see well, before I used my philosophic eye- 
water: I only supposed I saw well; but I was in error 
with all the rest of mankind. The blindness was real, the 
perceptions were imaginary. I cured myself first of those 
false imaginations, and then I laudably endeavoured to 
cure other men. 

Locke. — A great cure indeed! — and do you not think 
that, in return for the service you did them, they ought 
to erect you a statue? 

Bayle. — Yes; it is good for human nature to know its 
own weakness. When we arrogantly presume on a 
strength we have not, we are always in great danger of 
hurting ourselves, or at least of deserving ridicule and 
contempt by vain and idle efforts. 

Locke. — I agree with you that human nature should 
know its own weakness; but it should also feel its 
strength, and try to improve it. This was my employ- 
ment as a philosopher. I endeavoured to discover the 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 57 

r&al powers of the mind, to see what it could do, and 
what it could not; to restrain it from efforts beyond its 
ability; but to teach it how to advance as far as the 
faculties given to it by nature, with the utmost exertion, 
and most proper culture of them, would allow it to go. 
In the vast ocean of philosophy, I had the line and the 
plummet always in my hands. Many of its depths I 
found myself unable to fathom ; but by caution in sound- 
ing, and the careful observations I made in the course of 
my voyage, I found out some truths of so much use to 
mankind, that they acknowledge me to have been their 
benefactor. 

JBayle, — Their ignorance makes them think so. Some 
other philosopher will come hereafter, and show those 
truths to be falsehoods. He will pretend to discover other 
truths of equal importance. A later sage will arise, per- 
haps among men now barbarous and unlearned, whose 
sagacious discoveries will discredit the opinions of his 
admired predecessor. In philosophy, as in nature, all 
changes its form, and one thing exists by the destruction 
of another. 

Locke. — Opinions taken up without a patient investi- 
gation, depending on terms not accurately defined, and 
principles begged without proof, like theories to explain 
the phenomena of nature, built on suppositions instead of 
experiments, must perpetually change and destroy one 
another. But some opinions there are, even in matters 
not obvious to the common sense of mankind, which they 
have received on such rational ground of assent, that they 
are as immoveable as the pillars of heaven; or (to speak 
more philosophically), as the laws of nature, by which, 
under God, the universe is sustained. Can you seriously 
think, that, because the hypothesis of your countryman 
Descartes, which was nothing but an ingenious, well- 
imagined romance, has been lately exploded, the system 
of Newton, which is built on experiments and geometry, 
the two most certain methods of discovering truth, will 
ever fail; or that, because the whims of fanatics and the 
divinity of schoolmen, cannot now be supported, the 
doctrines of that religion, which I, the declared enemy of 
all enthusiasm and false reasoning, firmly believed and 
maintained, will ever be shaken? 



58 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 

Bayle. — If you had asked Descartes, while he was in 
the height of his vogue, whether his system would ever be 
confuted by any other philosophers, as that of Aristotle 
had been by his, what answer do you suppose he would 
have returned? 

Locke. — Come, come, you yourself know the difference 
between the foundations on which the credit of those 
systems, and that of Newton is placed. Your scepticism 
is more affected than real. You found it a shorter way 
to a great reputation (the only wish of your heart), to 
object, than to defend; to pull down, than to set up. 
And your talents were admirable for that kind of work. 
Then your huddling together in a critical dictionary, a 
pleasant tale, or obscene jest, and a grave argument 
against the Christian religion, a witty confutation of some 
absurd author, and an artful sophism to impeach some 
respectable truth, was particularly commodious to all our 
young smarts and smatterers in free-thinking. But what 
mischief have you not done to human society! You have 
endeavored, and with some degree of success, to shake 
those foundations on which the whole moral world, and 
the great fabric of social happiness, entirely rest. How 
could you as a philosopher, in the sober hours of reflec- 
tion, answer for this to your conscience; even supposing 
you had doubts of the truth of a system, which gives to 
virtue its sweetest hopes, to impenitent vice its greatest 
fears, and to true penitence its best consolations ; which 
restrains even the least approaches to guilt, and yet makes 
those allowances for the infirmities of our nature, which 
the stoic pride denied to it, but which its real imperfec- 
tion, and the goodness of its infinitely benevolent Creator, 
so evidently require? 

Bayle The mind is free; and it loves to exert its 

freedom. Any restraint upon it is a violence done to its 
nature, and a tyranny against which it has a right to rebel. 

Locke The mind, though free, has a governor within 

itself, which may, and ought to limit the exercise of its 
freedom. That governor is reason. 

Bayle. — Yes; but reason, like other governors, has a 
policy, more dependent on uncertain caprice, than upon 
any fixed laws. And if that reason which rules my mind 
or yours, has happened to set up a favorite notion, it not 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 59 

only submits implicitly to it, but desires tbat the same 
respect should be paid to it by all the rest of mankind. 
Now, I hold that any man may lawfully oppose this desire 
in another; and that, if he is wise, he will use his utmost 
endeavors to check it in himself. 

Locke, — Is there not also a weakness of a contrary 
nature to this you are now ridiculing? Do we not often 
take a pleasure in showing our own power, and gratifying 
our own pride, by degrading notions set up by other men, 
and generally respected. 

JBayle. — I believe we do ; and by this means it often 
happens, that, if one man builds and consecrates a temple 
to folly, another pulls it down. 

Locke. — Do you think it beneficial to human society, 
to have all temples pulled down? 

JBayle. — I cannot say that I do. 

Locke. — Yet I find not in your writings any mark of 
distinction to show us which you mean to save. 

JBayle. — A true philosopher, like an impartial historian, 
must be of no sect. 

Locke. — Is there no medium between the blind zeal of 
a sectary, and a total indifference to all religion? 

Bayle. — With regard to morality, I was not indifferent. 

Locke. — How could you then be indifferent with regard 
to the sanctions which religion gives to morality? How 
could you publish what tends so directly and apparently 
to weaken in mankind the belief of those sanctions? Was 
not this sacrificing the great interests of virtue to the little 
motives of vanity? 

Bayle. — A man may act indiscreetly, but he cannot do 
wrong, by declaring that which, on a full discussion of the 
question, he sincerely thinks to be true. 

Locke. — An enthusiast, who advances doctrines preju- 
dicial to society, or opposes any that are useful to it, has 
the strength of opinion, and the heat of a disturbed ima- 
gination, to plead in alleviation of his fault. But your cool 
head and sound judgment, can have no such excuse. I know 
very well there are passages in all your works, and those not 
a few, where you talk like a rigid moralist. I have also 
heard that your character was irreproachably good. But 
when, in the most labored parts of your writings, you sap 
the surest foundations of all moral duties; what avails it 



60 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 

that in others, or in the conduct of your life, you appeared 
to respect them? How many, who have stronger passions 
than you had, and are desirous to get rid of the curb that 
restrains them, will lay hold of your scepticism, to set 
themselves loose from all obligations of virtue. What a 
misfortune it is to have made such a use of such talents! 
It would have been better for you, and for mankind, if you 
had been one of the dullest of Dutch theologians, or the 
most credulous monk in a Portuguese convent. The 
riches of the mind, like those of fortune, may be employed 
so perversely, as to become a nuisance and pest, instead 
of an ornament and support, to society. 

JBayle. — You are veiy severe upon me. But, do you 
count it no merit, no service to mankind, to deliver them 
from the frauds and fetters of priestcraft, from the deliriums 
of fanaticism, and from the terrors and follies of supersti- 
tion? Consider how much mischief these have done to 
the world! Even in the last age, what massacres, what 
civil wars, what convulsions of government, what confu- 
sion in society, did they produce ! Nay, in that we both 
lived in, though much more enlightened than the former, 
did I not see them occasion a violent persecution in my 
own country? And can you blame me for striking at the 
root of these evils? 

Locke — The root of these evils, you well know, was 
false religion; but you struck at the true. Heaven and 
hell are not more different, than the system of faith P de- 
fended, and that which produced the horrors of which you 
speak. Why would you so fallaciously confound them 
together in some of your writings, that it requires much 
more judgment, and a more diligent attention, than ordi- 
nary readers have, to separate them again, and to make 
the proper distinctions? This, indeed, is the great art of 
the most celebrated free-thinkers. They recommend 
themselves to warm and ingenuous minds, by lively 
strokes of wit, and by arguments really strong, against 
superstition, enthusiasm, and' priestcraft. But, at the 
same time, they insidiously throw the colors of these upon 
the fair face of true religion ; and dress her out in their 
garb, with a malignant intention to render her odious or 
despicable, to those who have not penetration enough to 
discern the impious fraud. Some of them may have thus 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 61 

deceived themselves, as well as others. Yet it is certain, 
no book that ever was written by the most acute of these 
gentlemen, is so repugnant to priestcraft, to spiritual 
tyranny, to all absurd superstitions, to all that can tend to 
disturb or injure society, as that gospel they so much 
affect to despise. 

JBayle. — Mankind are so made, that when they have 
been overheated, they cannot be brought to a proper 
temper again, till they have been overcooled. My scep- 
ticism might be necessary, to abate the fever and frenzy 
of false religion. 

Locke. — A wise prescription, indeed, to bring on a 
paralytical state of the mind (for such a scepticism as 
yours is a palsy, which deprives the mind of all vigor, and 
deadens its natural and vital powers), in order to take off 
a fever, which temperance, and the milk of the evangelical 
doctrines, would probably cure. 

Bayle. — I acknowledge that those medicines have a 
great power. But few doctors apply them untainted with 
the mixture of some harsher drugs, or some unsafe and 
ridiculous nostrums of their own. 

Locke. — What you now say is too true. God has 
given us a most excellent physic for the soul in all its 
diseases; but bad and interested physicians, or ignorant 
and conceited quacks, administer it so ill to the rest of 
mankind, that much of the benefit of it is unhappily lost. 

Lord Lyttleton. 



On the Elocution of the Pulpit. 
I cannot forbear regretting here, that a matter of such 
vast importance to preaching as delivery, should be so 
generally neglected or misunderstood. A common ap- 
prehension prevails, indeed, that a strict regard to these 
rules would be deemed theatrical; and the dread perhaps 
of incurring this imputation, is a restraint upon many. 
But is it not possible to attain a just and expressive man- 
ner, perfectly consistent with the gravity of the pulpit, and 
yet quite distinct from the more passionate, strong, and 
diversified action of the theatre? And is it not possible, 
to hit off this manner so easily and naturally, as to leave 
no room for just reflection? An affair this, it must be 

G 



62 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 

owned, of the utmost delicacy; in which we shall probably 
often miscarry, and meet with abundance of censure at 
first. But still, I imagine, that through the regulations 
of taste, the improvements of experience, the corrections 
of friendship, the feelings of piety, and the gradual mel~ 
lowings of time — such an elocution may be acquired, as 
is above delineated; and such as, when acquired, will 
make its way to the hearts of the hearers, through their 
ears and eyes, with a delight to both, that is seldom felt ; 
whilst, contrary to what is commonly practised, it will 
appear to the former, the very language of nature, and 
present to the latter, the lively image of the preacher s souL 
Were a taste for this kind of elocution to take place, it is 
difficult to say how much the preaching art would gain by 
it. Pronunciation would be studied, an ear would be 
formed, the voice would be modulated, every feature of 
the face, every motion of the hands, every posture of the 
body, would be brought under right management. A 
graceful, and correct, and animated expression in all these 
would be ambitiously sought after; mutual criticisms and 
friendly hints would be universally encouraged; light and 
direction would be borrowed from every quarter, and 
from every age. The best models of antiquity would in 
a particular manner be admired, surveyed, and imitated. 
The sing-song voice, and the see-saw gestures, if I may 
be allowed to use those expressions, would, of course, be 
exploded; and in time, nothing would be admitted, at 
least approved among performers, but what was decent, 
manly, and truly excellent in the kind. Even the people 
themselves would contract, insensibly, a growing relish for 
such a manner; and these preachers would at last be in 
chief repute with all, who followed nature, overlooked 
themselves, appeared totally absorbed in the subject, and 
spoke with real propriety and pathos, from the immediate 
impulse of truth and virtue. Rev. James Fordyce* 



TJie Old Major and the Young Officer. 
When I was a young man about this town, I frequented 
the Ordinary of the Black Horse in Holbor?i, where the 
person that usually presided at the table was a rough old-* 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 63 

fashioned gentleman, who, according to the customs of 
those times, had been the Major and Preacher of a regi- 
ment. It happened one day that a noisy young officer, 
bred in France, was venting some new-fangled notions, 
and speaking, in the gaiety of his humor, against the dis- 
pensations of Providence. The Major at first only desired 
him to talk more respectfully of one for whom all the 
company had an honor ; but finding him run on in his ex- 
travagance, began to reprimand him after a more serious 
manner. Young man, said he, do not abuse your Bene- 
factor whilst you are eating his bread. Consider whose 
air you breathe, whose presence you are in, and who it is 
that gave you the power of that very speech which you 
make use of to his dishonor. The young fellow, Avho 
thought to turn matters into a jest, asked him, if he was 
going to preach? But, at the same time, desired him to 
take care what he said, when he spoke to a man of honor. 
A man of honor, says the Major, thou art an infidel and 
a blasphemer, and I shall use thee as such. In short, the 
quarrel ran so high, that the Major was desired to walk 
out. Upon their coming into the garden, the old fellow 
advised his antagonist to consider the place into which 
one pass might drive him ; but finding him grow upon him 
to a degree of scurrility, as believing the advice proceeded 
from fear; Sirrah, says he, if a thunderbolt does not strike 
thee dead before I come at thee, I shall not fail to chas- 
tise thee for thy profaneness to thy Maker, and thy sauci- 
ness to his* servant. Upon this he drew his sword, and 
cried out with a loud voice, The sivord of tlie Lord and 
of Gideon! which so terrified his antagonist, that he was 
immediately disarmed, and thrown upon his knees. In 
this posture he begged his life ; but the Major refused to 
grant it, before he had asked pardon for his offence in a 
short extemporary prayer, which the old gentleman dic- 
tated to him upon the spot, and which his proselyte re- 
peated after him in the presence of the whole Ordinary, 
that were now gathered about him in the garden. Tatler. 



Remarks of a Sceptic on the Majesty of the Scriptures. 
I will confess that the majesty of the Scriptures strikes 
me with admiration, as the purity of the gospel hath its 



64 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 

influence on my heart. Peruse the works of our philoso- 
phers with all their pomp of diction: how mean, how 
contemptible are they, compared with the Scriptures ! Is 
it possible, that a book, at once so simple and so sublime, 
should be merely the work of man? Is it possible, that 
the sacred personage, whose history it contains, should be 
himself, a mere man? Do we find that he assumed the 
tone of an enthusiast or ambitious sectary? What sweet- 
ness, what purity in his manner! What an affecting 
gracefulness in his delivery! What sublimity in his 
maxims! What profound wisdom in his discourses! 
What presence of mind, what subtlety, what truth in his 
replies! How great the command over his passions! 
Where is the man, where the philosopher, who could so 
live, and so die, without weakness, and without ostenta- 
tion? When Plato described his imaginary good man, 
loaded with all the shame of guilt, yet meriting the highest 
rewards of virtue, he described exactly the character of 
Jesus Christ ; the resemblance was so striking, that all the 
fathers perceived it. 

What prepossession, what blindness must it be, to com- 
pare the son of Sophroniscus to the son of Mary! What 
an infinite disproportion there is between them ! Socrates 
dying without pain or ignominy, easily supported his char- 
acter to the last : and if his death, however easy, had not 
crowned his life, it might have been doubted, whether 
Socrates, with all his wisdom, was any thing more than a 
vain sophist. He invented, it is said, the theory of morals. 
Others, however, had before put them in practice ; he had 
only to say, therefore, what they had done, and to reduce 
their examples to precepts. Aristides had been just, be- 
fore Socrates had defined justice: Leonidas had given 
up his life for his country, before Socrates declared pa- 
triotism to be a duty: The Spartans were a sober people, 
before Socrates recommended sobriety; before he had even 
defined virtue, Greece abounded in virtuous men. 

But where could Jesus learn, among his competitors, 
that pure and sublime morality, of which he only hath 
given both precept and example. The greatest wisdom 
was made known amongst the most bigotted fanaticism, 
and the simplicity of the most heroic virtues did honor to 
the vilest people on earth. The death of Socrates, peace- 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 65 

&bly philosophizing with his friends, appears the most 
agreeable that could be wished for; that of Jesus, expir- 
ing in the midst of agonizing pains, abused, insulted, and 
accursed by a whole nation, is the most horrible that could 
be feared. Socrates, in receiving the cup of poison, blessed 
indeed the weeping executioner who administered it ; but 
Jesus, in the midst of excruciating tortures, prayed for his 
merciless tormentors. Yes! if the life and death of So- 
crates were those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus 
were those of a God ! Shall we suppose the evangelic his- 
tory a mere fiction? Indeed it bears not the marks of 
fiction ; on the contrary, the history of Socrates, which 
nobody presumes to doubt, is not so well attested as that 
of Jesus Christ. Such a supposition, in fact, only shifts 
the difficulty, without obviating it; it is more inconceiv- 
able, that a number of persons should agree to write such 
a history, than that one only should furnish the subject of 
it. The Jewish authors were incapable of the diction, 
and strangers to the morality contained in the gospel, the 
marks of whose truth are so striking and inimitable, that 
the inventor would be a more astonishing character than 
the hero. Rousseau. 



On the comparatively small Influence of Religion on the mere 
natural Mind, ivhen opposed by Worldly Temptations. 

In recounting so many influences that operate on man, 
it is grievous to observe that the incomparably noblest of 
all religion is counteracted with a fatal success by a per- 
petual conspiracy of almost all the rest, aided by the in- 
trinsic predisposition of our nature, which yields itself 
with such consenting facility to every impression tending 
to estrange it still farther from God. 

It is a cause for wonder and sorrow, to see millions of 
rational creatures growing into their permanent habits, 
under the conforming efficacy of every thing which they 
ought to resist, and receiving no part of those habits from 
impressions of the Supreme Object. They are content that 
a narrow scene of a diminutive world, with its atoms and 
evils, should usurp, and deprave, and finish their educa- 
tion for immortality, while the Infinite Spirit is here, whose 



66 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS . 

transforming companionship would exalt them into his 
sons, and, in defiance of a thousand malignant forces at- 
tempting to stamp on them an opposite image, lead them 
into eternity in his likeness. Oh, why is it so possible 
that this greatest inhabitant of every place where men are 
living, should be the last whose society they seek, or of 
whose being constantly near them, they feel the impor- 
tance? Why is it possible to be surrounded with the in- 
telligent Reality which exists wherever we are, with at- 
tributes that are infinite, and not feel respecting all other 
things which may be attempting to press on our minds 
and affect their characters, as if they retained with diffi- 
culty their shadows of existence, and were continually on 
the point of vanishing into nothing? Why is this stu- 
pendous Intelligence so retired and silent, while present 
over all the scenes of the earth, and in all the paths and 
abodes of men? Why does he keep his glory invisible 
behind the shades and visions of the material world? 
Why does not this latent glory sometimes beam forth 
with such a manifestation as could never be forgotten, or 
never be remembered without an emotion of religious 
fear? And why, in contempt of all that he has displayed 
to excite either fear or love, is it still possible for a ra- 
tional creature so to five, that it must finally come to an 
interview with him in a character completed by the full 
assemblage of those acquisitions which have separately 
been disapproved by him through every stage of the ac- 
cumulation? Why is it possible for feeble creatures to 
maintain their little dependent beings, fortified and invin- 
cible in sin, amidst the presence of divine purity? Why 
does not the thought of such a Being strike through the 
mind with such intense antipathy to evil, as to blast with 
death every active principle that is beginning to pervert 
it, and render gradual additions of depravity, growing into 
the solidity of habit, as impossible, as for perishable ma- 
terials to be raised into structures amidst the fires of the 
last day? How is it possible to forget the solicitude which 
should accompany the consciousness, that such a Being is 
continually darting upon us the beams of observant thought 
(if we may apply such a term to Omniscience), that we are 
exposed to the piercing inspection, compared to which the 
concentrated attention of all the beings in the universe 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. &J 

besides, would be but as the powerless gaze of an infant? 
Why is faith, that faculty of spiritual apprehension, so 
absent, or so incomparably more slow and reluctant to 
receive a just perception of the grandest of its objects, 
than the senses are adapted to receive the impressions of 
theirs? While there is a Spirit pervading the universe 
with an infinite energy of being, why have the few particles 
of dust which enclose our spirits the power to intercept 
all sensible communication with it, and to place them as 
in a vacuity, where the sacred essence had been precluded 
or extinguished? 

The reverential submission with which you ought to 
contemplate the Omnipotent Benevolence forbearing to 
exert the agency which could assume an instantaneous 
ascendancy in every mind over the causes of depravation 
and ruin, will not avert your compassion from the unhappy 
persons who are practically " without God in the world." 
And i£ by some vast enlargement of thought, you could 
comprehend the whole measure and depth of disaster con- 
tained in this exclusion (an exclusion under which, to the 
view of a serious mind, the resources and magnificence of 
the creation would sink into a mass of dust and ashes, 
and all the causes of joy and hope into disgust and despair), 
you would feel a strange emotion at each recital of a life 
in which religion had no share ; and you would be tempted 
to wish that some spirit from the other world, possessed 
of eloquence that might threaten to alarm the slumbers of 
the dead, would throw himself in the way of this one mor- 
tal, and this one more, to protest, in sentences of lightning 
and thunder, against the infatuation that can at once ac- 
knowledge there is a God, and be content to forego every 
connexion with him, but that of danger. You would wish 
they should rather be assailed by the " terror of thq 
Lord," than retain the satisfaction of carelessness till the 
day of his mercy be past. Foster. 



The Bashful Man. 
I labor under a species of distress, which, I fear, will 
at length drive me utterly from that society in which I 
am most ambitious to appear; but I shall give you a short 



68 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 

sketch of my origin and present situation, by which you 
will be enabled to judge of my difficulties. 

My father was a farmer of no great property, and with 
no other learning than what he had acquired at a charity- 
school; but my mother being dead, and I an only child, 
he determined to give me that advantage which he fancied 
would have made me happy, — that is, a learned educa- 
tion. I was sent to a country grammar-school, and from 
thence to the university, with a view of qualifying me for 
holy orders. Here, having but a small allowance from 
my father, and being naturally of a timid and bashful dis- 
position, I had no opportunity of rubbing off that native 
awkwardness which is the fatal cause of all my unhappi- 
ness, and which I now begin to fear, can never be amended. 
You must know, that in my person I am tall and thin, 
with a fair complexion and light flaxen hair; but of such 
extreme susceptibility of shame, that on the smallest 
subject of confusion, my blood all rushes into my cheeks, 
and I appear a perfect full-blown rose. The conscious- 
ness of this unhappy failing made me avoid society, and I 
became enamored of a college life, particularly when I re- 
flected that the uncouth manners of my father's family 
were little calculated to improve my outward conduct. I 
therefore had resolved on living at the university, and tak- 
ing pupils, when two unexpected events greatly altered 
the posture of my affairs, viz. my father's death, and the 
arrival of an uncle from the Indies. 

This uncle I had very rarely heard my father mention; 
and it was generally believed that he was long since dead, 
when he arrived in England only a week too late to close 
his brother's eyes/' I am ashamed to confess, what I be- 
lieve has been often experienced by those whose education 
has been better than that of their parents, that my poor 
father's ignorance and vulgar language had often made me 
blush to think I was his son; and, at his death, I was not 
inconsolable for the loss of that which I was not unfre- 
quently ashamed to own. My uncle was but little af- 
fected, for he had been separated from his brother more 
than thirty years, and in that time he had acquired a for- 
tune which he used to brag would make a nabob happy: 
in short, he had brought over with him the enormous sum 
of thirty thousand pounds, and upon this he built his hopes 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 69 

of never-ending happiness. While he was planning schemes 
of greatness and delight, whether the change of climate 
might affect him, or what other cause I know not, but he 
was snatched from all his dreams of joy by a short illness, 
of which he died, leaving me heir to all his property. 
And, now Sir, behold me, at the age of twenty-five, well 
stocked with Latin, Greek, and mathematics, possessed 
of an ample fortune, but so awkward and unversed in any 
gentlemanlike accomplishment, that I am pointed at by 
all who see me, as the wealthy learned clown. 

I have lately purchased an estate in the country, which 
abounds with what is called a fashionable neighborhood ; 
and when you reflect on my parentage and uncouth man- 
ners, you will hardly think how much my company is 
courted by the surrounding families, especially by those 
who have marriageable daughters. From these gentlemen 
I have received familiar calls, and the most pressing in- 
vitations; and though I wished to accept their offered 
friendship, I have repeatedly excused myself, under the 
pretence of not being quite settled; for the truth is, that 
when I have rode or walked, with full intention to return 
their several visits, my heart has failed me as I approached 
their gates, and I have frequently returned homewards, 
resolving to try again to-morrow. 

However, I at length determined to conquer my timi- 
dity, and three days ago accepted of an invitation to dine 
this day with one, whose open easy manner left me no 
room to doubt a cordial welcome. Sir Thomas Friendly, 
who lives about two miles distant, is a baronet, with an 
estate of about two thousand pounds a-year, joining to that 
which I purchased. He has two sons and five daughters, 
all grown up, and living with their mother, and a maiden 
sister of Sir Thomas's, at Friendly-Hall, dependent on 
their father. Conscious of my unpolished gait, I have for 
some time past taken private lessons from a professor, who 
teaches " grown-up gentlemen to dance;" and altho I at 
first found wondrous difficulty in the art he taught, my know- 
ledge of mathematics was of prodigious use in teaching me 
the equilibrium of my body, and the due adjustment of 
the centre of gravity to the five positions. Having now 
acquired the art of walking without tottering, and learned 
to make a bow, I boldly ventured to accept the Baronet's 



70 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 

invitation to a family dinner, not doubting but my new 
acquirements would enable me to see the ladies with tol- 
erable intrepidity ; but, alas ! how vain are all the hopes 
of theory when unsupported by habitual practice! As I 
approached the house, a dinner-bell alarmed my fears lest 
I had spoiled the dinner by want of punctuality. Impressed 
with this idea, I blushed the deepest crimson, as my name 
was repeatedly announced by the several livery- servants, 
who ushered me into the library, hardly knowing whom 
or what I saw. At my first entrance, I summoned all my 
fortitude, and made my new-learned bow to Lady Friendly ; 
but unfortunately bringing back my left foot into the third 
position, I trod upon the gouty toe of poor Sir Thomas, 
who had followed close at my heels to be the nomenclator 
of the family. The confusion this occasioned in me is 
hardly to be conceived, since none but bashful men can 
judge of my distress ; and of that description, the number 
is, I believe, very small. The Baronet's politeness, by 
degrees, dissipated my concern; and I was astonished to 
see how far good-breeding could enable him to suppress 
Ins feelings, and to appear with perfect ease after so pain- 
ful an accident. 

The cheerfulness of her ladyship, and the familiar chat 
of the young ladies, insensibly led me to throw off my re- 
serve and sheepishness, till at length I ventured to join in 
the conversation, and even to start fresh subjects. The 
library being richly furnished with books in elegant bind- 
ings, I conceived Sir Thomas to be a man of literature ; 
and ventured to give my opinion concerning the several 
editions of the Greek classics, in which the Baronet's ideas 
exactly coincided with my own. To this subject I was 
led by observing an edition of Xenophon, in sixteen vo- 
lumes, which (as I had never before heard of such a thing) 
greatly excited my curiosity, and I rose up to examine 
what it could be. Sir Thomas saw what I was about, 
and (as I supposed) willing to save me trouble, rose to 
take down the book, which made me more eager to pre- 
vent him, and hastily laying my hand on the first volume, 
I pulled it forcibly; but lo! instead of books, a board, 
which, by leather and gilding, had been made to look like 
sixteen volumes, came tumbling down, and unluckily 
pitched upon a Wedgwood ink-stand on the table under 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. *]\ 

it. In vain did Sir Thomas assure me there was no harm. 
I saw the ink streaming from an inlaid table on the Turkey 
carpet, and scarce knowing what I did, attempted to stop 
its progress with my cambric handkerchief. In the height 
of this confusion, we were informed that dinner was served 
up ; and I with joy then understood that the bell which at 
first had so alarmed my fears, was only the half-hour din- 
ner-bell. 

In walking through the hall and suite of apartments to 
the dining-room, I had time to collect my scattered senses, 
and was desired to take my seat betwixt Lady Friendly 
and her eldest daughter at the table. Since the fall of the 
wooden Xenophon, my face had been continually burning 
like a fire-brand ; and I was just beginning to recover my- 
self, and to feel comfortably cool, when an unlooked-for 
accident rekindled all my heat and blushes. Having set 
my plate of soup too near the edge of the table, in bowing 
to Miss Dinah, who politely complimented the pattern of 
my waistcoat, I tumbled the whole scalding contents into 
my lap. In spite of an immediate supply of napkins to wipe 
the surface of my clothes, my black silk breeches were not 
stout enough to save me from the painful effects of this sud- 
den fermentation, and for some minutes my legs and thighs 
seemed stewed in a boiling caldron; but recollecting how 
Sir Thomas had disguised his torture, when I trod upon 
his toes, I firmly bore my pain in silence, and sat with 
my lower extremities parboiled, amidst the stifled giggling 
of the ladies and the servants. I will not relate the se- 
veral blunders which I made during the first course, or 
the distresses occasioned by my being desired to carve a 
fowl, or help to various dishes that stood near me, spilling 
a sauce-boat, and knocking down a salt-cellar; rather let 
me hasten to the second course, where fresh disasters quite 
overwhelmed me. 

I had a piece of rich sweet pudding on my fork, when 
Miss Louisa Friendly begged to trouble me for some of a 
pigeon that stood near me. In my haste, scarce knowing 
what I did, I whipped the pudding into my mouth, hot 
as a burning coal: it was impossible to conceal my agony; 
my eyes were starting from their sockets. At last, in 
spite of shame and resolution, I was obliged to drop the 
cause of my torment on my plate. Sir Thomas and the 



72 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 

ladies all compassionated my misfortune, and each ad- 
vised a different application. One recommended oil, 
another water, but all agreed that wine was the best for 
drawing out the heat; and a glass of sherry was brought 
me from the side-board, which I snatched up with eager- 
ness: but oh! how shall I tell the sequel? Whether the 
butler, by accident, mistook, or purposely designed, to 
drive me mad, he gave me the strongest brandy, with 
which I filled my mouth, already flayed and blistered. 
Totally unused to every kind of ardent spirits, with my 
tongue, throat, and palate, as raw as beef, what could I 
do? I could not swallow; and clapping my hands upon 
my mouth, the cursed liquor squirted through my nose 
and fingers, like a fountain, over all the dishes, and I was 
crushed by bursts of laughter from all quarters. In vain 
did Sir Thomas reprimand the servants, and Lady Friendly 
chide her daughters; for the measure of my shame and 
their diversion was not yet complete. To relieve me 
from the intolerable state of perspiration which this acci- 
dent had caused, without considering what I did, I wiped 
my face with that ill-fated handkerchief, which was still 
wet, from the consequences of the fall of Xenophon, and 
covered all my features with streaks of ink in every direc- 
tion. The Baronet himself could not support this shock, 
but joined his lady in the general laugh; while I sprung 
from the table in despair, rushed out of the house, and 
ran home in an agony of confusion and disgrace, which 
the most poignant sense of guilt could not have excited. 

Anon. 



Eruption of Mount Vesuvius, in 1717. 
In the year 1717, in the middle of April, with much 
difficulty I reached the top of Mount Vesuvius, in which 
I saw a vast aperture full of smoke, that hindered me 
from seeing its depth and figure. I heard within the hor- 
rid guuy extraordinary sounds, which seemed to proceed 
from the^ bowels of the mountain, and, at intervals, a noise 
like that of thunder or cannon, with a clattering like the 
falling of tiles from the tops of houses into the streets* 
Sometimes, as the wind changed, the smoke grew thin- 
ner, discovering a veiy ruddy flame, and the circumference 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 73 

of the crater streaked with red and several shades of yel- 
low. After an hour's stay, the smoke being moved by 
the wind, we had short and partial prospects of the great 
hollow, in the flat bottom of which, I could discern two 
furnaces almost contiguous ; that on the left seeming about 
three yards over, glowing with ruddy flame, and throwing 
up red-ho.t stones, with a hideous noise, which, as they 
fell back, caused the clattering already taken notice of. 

May 8th, in the morning, I ascended the top of Vesu- 
vius a second time, and found a different face of things. 
The smoke ascending upright, afforded a full view of the 
crater, which, as far as I could judge, was about a mile in 
circumference, and a hundred yards deep. Since my last 
visit, a conical mount has been formed in the middle of 
the bottom. This has been made by the stones thrown 
up and fallen back again into the crater. In this new 
hill, remained the two furnaces already mentioned. The 
one was seen to throw up every three or four minutes, 
with a dreadful sound, a vast number of red-hot stones, at 
least three hundred feet higher than my head ; but as there 
was no wind, they fell perpendicularly back into the place 
whence they had been discharged. The other was filled 
with red-hot liquid matter, like that in the furnace of a 
glass-house, raging and working like the waves of the sea, 
with a short abrupt noise. This matter sometimes boiled 
over, and ran down the sides of the conical hill, appearing 
at first red hot, but changing color as it hardened and 
cooled. Had the wind set towards us, we should have 
been in no small danger of being stifled by the sulphurous 
smoke, or killed by the masses of melted mineral that were 
shot from the bottom. But as the wind was favorable, I 
had an opportunity of surveying this amazing scene for 
above an hour and a-half together. 

On the 5th of June, after a horrid noise, the mountain 
was seen at Naples to work over; and about three days 
after, its thunders were renewed, so that not only the 
windows in the city, but all the houses shook. Front that 
time, it continued to overflow, and sometimes, at bright, 
exhibited columns of fire shooting upward from its sum- 
mit. On the 10th, when all was thought to be over, the 
mountain again renewed its terrors, roaring arid raging 
most violently. One cannot form a juster idea of the 



74 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 

noise, in the most violent fits of it, than by imagining a 
mixed sound made up of the raging of a tempest, the 
murmur of a troubled sea, and the roaring of thunder and 
artillery, confused all together. Though we heard this 
terrible noise at the distance of twelve miles, yet we re- 
solved to approach nearer to the mountain: and accord- 
ingly three or four of us entered a boat, and. were set 
ashore at a little town, situated at the foot of the moun- 
tain. From thence we rode about four or five miles be- 
fore we came to the torrent of fire that was descending 
from the side of the volcano, and here the roaring grew 
exceedingly loud and terrible. I observed a mixture of 
colors in the cloud above the crater— green, yellow, red, 
blue. There was likewise a ruddy, dismal light, in the 
air over that tract where the burning river flowed. These 
circumstances, set off and augmented by the horror of the 
night, formed a scene the most uncommon and astonishing 
I ever saw, which still increased as we approached the 
burning river. A vast torrent of liquid fire rolled from 
the crater down the sides of the mountain, and with irre- 
sistible fury bore down and consumed vines, olives, and 
houses, and divided into different channels, according to 
the inequalities of the mountain. The largest stream 
seemed at least half a mile broad, and five miles long. I 
walked before my companions so far up the mountain, 
along the side of the river of fire, that I was obliged to 
retire in great haste, the sulphurous steam having sur- 
prised me, and almost taken away my breath. During 
our return, which was about three o'clock in the morning, 
the roaring of the mountain was heard all the way; while 
we observed it throwing up huge spouts of fire and burn- 
ing stones, which, falling, resembled the stars in a rocket. 
Sometimes I observed two or three distinct columns of 
flame, and sometimes one only that was large enough to 
fill the whole crater. These burning columns and fiery 
stones, seemed to be shot a thousand feet perpendicular 
above' the summit of the volcano. In this manner, the 
mountain continued raging for six or eight days after. On 
the 18th of the same month, the whole appearance ended, 
and Vesuvius remained perfectly quiet, without any visi- 
ble smoke or flame. Bishop Berkeley* 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 7& 



On Mr. (noio Sir Walter) Scott's Vision of 
Don Roderick. 
We are not very apt to quarrel with a poet for his po- 
litics; — and really supposed it next to impossible that Mr 
Scott should have given us any ground of dissatisfaction 
on this score, in the management of his present theme. 
Lord Wellington and Ms fellow-soldiers have well deserved 
the laurels they have won ; — nor is there one British heart, 
we believe, that will not feel proud and grateful, for all 
the honors with which British genius can invest their 
names. In the praises which Mr Scott has bestowed, 
therefore, all his readers will sympathise; but for those 
which he has withheld, there are some that will not so 
readily forgive him. And, in our eyes, we will confess, 
it is a sin not easily to be expiated, that in a poem written 
substantially for the purpose of commemorating the brave, 
who have fought or fallen in Spain and Portugal, — and 
written by a Scotchman, — there should be no mention of 
the name of Moore! — of the only commander-in-chief 
who has fallen in this memorable contest;- — of a com- 
mander, who was acknowledged as the model and pattern 
of a British soldier, when British soldiers stood most in 
need of such an example; — and was, at the same time, 
distinguished not less for every manly virtue and generous 
affection, than for skill and gallantry in his profession. A 
more pure, or a more exalted character, certainly has not 
yet appeared upon that scene which Mr Scott has sought 
to illustrate with the splendor of his genius; and it is with 
a mixture of shame and indignation, that we find him 
grudging a single ray of that profuse and readily-yielded 
glory to gild the grave of his lamented countryman. To 
offer a lavish tribute of praise to the living, whose task is 
still incomplete, may be generous and munificent ; — but, 
to departed merit — it is due in strictness of justice. Who 
will deny that Sir John Moore was all that we have now 
said of him? — or who will doubt that his untimely death 
in the hour of victory, would have been eagerly seized 
upon by an impartial poet, as a noble theme for generous 
lamentation and eloquent praise? — But Mr Scott's poli- 
tical Mends have fancied it for their interest to calumniate 
the memory of this illustrious and accomplished person; — 



76 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 

and Mr Scott has permitted the spirit of party to stand 
in the way, not only of poetical justice, but of patriotic 
and generous feeling. 

It is this for which we grieve, and feel ashamed : — this 
hardening and deadening effect of political animosities, in 
cases where politics should hare nothing to do; — this ap- 
parent perversion, not merely of the judgment, but of the 
heart; — this implacable resentment, which war not only 
with the living, but with the dead : — and think it a reason 
for defrauding a departed warrior of his glory, that a po- 
litical antagonist has been zealous in his praise. These 
things are lamentable; and they cannot be alluded to, 
without some emotions of sorrow and resentment. But 
they affect not the fame of him, on whose account these 
emotions are suggested. The wars of Spain, and the 
merits of Sir John Moore, will be commemorated in a 
more impartial, and a more imperishable record, than the 
Vision of Don Roderick; — and his humble monument in 
the citadel of Corunna, will draw the tears and the ad- 
miration of thousands, who concern not themselves about 
the exploits of his more fortunate associates. 

Edinburgh Review. 



The Fair and Happy Milh-Maid. 
A fair and happy milk-maid is a country wench that is 
so far from making herself beautiful by art, that one look 
of hers is able to put all face-physic out of countenance. 
She knows a fair look is but a dumb orator to commend 
virtue, therefore minds it not. All her excellencies stand 
on her so silently, as if they had stolen upon her without 
her knowledge. The lining of her apparel (which is her- 
self) is far better than outsides of tissue; for altho she is 
not arrayed in the spoil of the silk-worm, she is decked 
in innocency, a far better wearing. She doth not, with 
lying long in bed, spoil both her complexion and her con- 
dition. Nature hath taught her, too immoderate sleep 
is rust to the soul: she rises therefore with chanticleer, 
her dame's cock, and at night makes the lamb her curfew. 
Her breath is her own, which scents all the year long of 
June, like a new-made haycock. She makes her hand 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 77 

hard with labor, and her heart soft with pity; and when 
winter evenings fall early (sitting at her merry wheel), she 
sings a defiance to the giddy wheel of fortune. She doth 
all things with so sweet a grace, it seems ignorance will 
not suffer her to do ill, being her mind is to do well. She 
bestows her year's wages at next fair; and in choosing her 
garments, counts no bravery in the world like decency. 
The garden and bee-hive are all her physic and chirur- 
gery, and she lives the longer for it. She dares go alone, 
and unfold sheep in the night, and fears no manner of 
ill, because she means none: yet, to say the truth, she is 
never alone, for she is still accompanied with old songs, 
honest thoughts, and prayers, but short ones; yet they 
have their efficacy, in that they are not palled with en- 
suing idle cogitations. Lastly, her dreams are so chaste, 
that she dare tell them ; only a Friday's dream is all her 
superstition; that she conceals for fear of anger. Thus 
lives she; and all her care is, that she may die in the 
spring-time, and to have store of flowers stuck upon her 
winding-sheet. Sir Thomas Overbury. 



Description of the World. 

Professor Von Poddingcoft (or Puddinghead, as the 
name may be rendered into English) was long celebrated 
in the University of Leyden, for profound gravity of de- 
portment, and a talent at going to sleep in the midst of 
examination, to the infinite relief of his hopeful students, 
who thereby worked their way through college with great 
ease and little study. In the course of one of his lectures, 
the learned professor, seizing a bucket of water, swung it 
round his head at arm's length: the impulse with which 
he threw the vessel from him, being a centrifugal force, 
the retention of his arm operating as a centripetal power, 
and the bucket, which was a substitute for the earth, 
describing a singular orbit round about the globular head 
and ruby visage of Professor Von Poddingcoft, which 
formed no bad representation of the sun. 

All of these particulars were duly explained to the class 
of gaping students around him. He apprized them, 
moreover, that the same principle of gravitation, which 



78 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 

retained the water in the bucket, restrains the ocean from 
flying from the earth in its rapid revolutions ; and he fur- 
ther informed them that, should the motion of the earth 
be suddenly checked, it would incontinently fall into the 
sun, through the centripetal force of gravitation; a most 
ruinous event to this planet, and one which would also 
obscure, though it most probably would not extinguish, 
the solar luminary. An unlucky stripling, one of those 
vagrant geniuses, who seem sent into the world, merely 
to annoy worthy men of the puddinghead order, desirous 
of ascertaining the correctness of the experiment, suddenly 
arrested the arm of the professor, just at the moment that 
the bucket was in its zenith, which immediately descended 
with astonishing precision upon the philosophic head of 
the instructor of youth. A hollow sound, and a red hot 
hiss, attended the contact; but the theoiy was in the am- 
plest manner illustrated, for the unfortunate bucket per- 
ished in the conflict; but the blazing countenance of 
Professor Von Poddingcoft, emerged from amidst the 
waters, glowing fiercer than ever with unutterable indig- 
tion — whereby the students were marvellously edified, 
and departed considerably wiser than before. 

It is a mortifying circumstance, which greatly perplexes 
many a pains-taking philosopher, that nature often re- 
fuses to second his most profound and elaborate efforts; 
so that, after having invented one of the most ingenious 
and natural theories imaginable, she will have the perverse- 
ness to act in the teeth of his system, and flatly contradict 
his most favourite positions. This is a manifest and un- 
merited grievance, since it throws the censure of the vulgar 
and unlearned entirely upon the philosopher; whereas the 
fault is not to be ascribed to his theory, which is unques- 
tionably correct, but to the waywardness of dame Nature, 
who, with the proverbial fickleness of her sex, is continu- 
ally indulging in coquetries and caprices, and seems really 
to take pleasure in violating all" philosophical rules, and 
jilting the most learned and indefatigable of her adorers. 
Thus it happened with respect to the foregoing satisfac- 
tory explanation of the motion of our planet. It appears 
that the centrifugal force long since ceased to operate, 
while its antagonist remains in undiminished potency; the 
world, therefore, according to the theoiy as it originally 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. J9 

stood, ought, in strict propriety, to tumble into the sun; 
pliilosophers were convinced that it would do so, and 
waited in anxious impatience the fulfilment of their prog- 
nostics. But the untoward planet pertinaciously continued 
her course, notwithstanding that she had reason, philoso- 
phy, and a whole university of learned professors opposed 
to her conduct. The philosophers took this in very ill part, 
and it is thought they never would have pardoned the 
slight and affront which they conceived put upon them by 
the world, had not a good-natured professor kindly of- 
ficiated as mediator between the parties, and effected a 
reconciliation. Finding the world would not accommo- 
date itself to the theory, he wisely determined to accom- 
modate the theory to the world: he therefore informed 
his brother philosophers, that the circular motion of the 
earth round the sun, was no sooner engendered by the 
conflicting impulses above described, than it became a 
regular revolution, independent of the causes which gave 
it origin. His learned brethren readily joined in the 
opinion, being heartily glad of any explanation that would 
decently extricate them from their embarrassment — and 
ever since that memorable era, the world has been left to 
take her own course, and to revolve around the sun in such 
orbit as she thinks proper, Washington Irvine, 



On the relative Value of good Sense and Beauty in tJie 
Female Sex. 
Notwithstanding the lessons of moralists, and the de- 
clamations of philosophers, it cannot be denied that all 
mankind have a natural love, and even respect, for external 
beauty. In vain do they represent it as a thing of no value 
in itself, as a frail and perishable flower; in vain do they 
exhaust all the depths of argument, all the stores of fancy, 
to prove the worthlessness of this amiable gift of Nature. 
However persuasive their reasonings may appear, and 
however we may for a time fancy ourselves convinced by 
them, we have in our breasts a certain instinct, which 
never fails to tell us, that all is not satisfactory, and tho 
we may not be able to prove that they are wrong, we feel 
a conviction that it is impossible they should be right. 



80 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 

They are certainly right in blaming those who are ren- 
dered vain by the possession of beauty, since vanity is at 
all times a fault ; but there is a great difference between 
being vain of a thing, and being happy that we have it; 
and that beauty, however little merit a woman can claim 
to herself for it, is really a quality which she may reason- 
ably rejoice to possess, demands, I think, no very labored 
proof. Every one naturally wishes to please. To this 
end we know how important it is, that the first impression 
we produce should be favorable. Now this first impression 
is commonly produced through the medium of the eye; 
and this is frequently so powerful, as to resist, for a long 
time, the opposing evidence of subsequent observation. 
Let a man of even the soundest judgment be presented 
to two women, equally strangers to him, but the one ex- 
tremely handsome, the other without any remarkable ad- 
vantages of person, and he will, without deliberation, at- 
tach himse^ first to the former. All men seem in this to 
be actuated by the same principle as Socrates, who used 
to say, that when he saw a beautiful person, he always 
expected to see it animated by a beautiful soul. The la- 
dies, however, often fall into the fatal error of imagining 
that a fine person is, in our eyes, superior to every other 
accomplishment, and those who are so happy as to be en- 
dowed with it, rely, with vain confidence, on its irresistible 
power, to retain hearts as well as to subdue them. Hence 
the lavish care bestowed on the improvement of exterior 
and perishable charms, and the neglect of solid and dur- 
able excellence ; hence the long list of arts that administer 
to vanity and folly, the countless train of glittering accom- 
plishments, and the scanty catalogue of truly valuable ac- 
quirements, which compose, for the most part, the modern 
system of fashionable female education. Yet so far is 
beauty from being in our eyes an excuse for the want of 
a cultivated mind, that the women who are blessed with 
it, have, in reality, a much harder task to perform, than 
those of their sex who are not so distinguished. Even our 
self-love here takes part against them; we feel ashamed 
of having suffered ourselves to be caught like children, by 
mere outside, and perhaps even fall into the contrary ex- 
treme. Could " the statue that enchants the world," — 
the Venus de Medicis, at the prayer of some new Pyg- 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRxVCTS. 81 

malion, become suddenly animated, how disappointed 
would lie be, if she were not endowed with a soul, an- 
swerable to the inimitable perfection of her heavenly form? 
Thus it is with a fine woman, whose only accomplishment 
is external excellence. She may dazzle for a time, but when 
a man lias once thought, " what a pity that such a master- 
piece should be a walking statue," her empire is at an end. 

On the other hand, when a woman, the plainness of 
whose features prevented our noticing her at first, is found, 
upon nearer acquaintance, to be possessed of the more 
solid and valuable perfections of the mind, the pleasure 
we feel in being so agreeably undeceived, makes her ap- 
pear to still greater advantage; and as the mind of man, 
when left to itself, is naturally an enemy to all injustice, 
we, even unknown to ourselves, strive to repair the wrong 
we have involuntarily done her, by a double portion of 
attention and regard. 

If these observations be founded in truth, it will appear 
that, tho a woman with a cultivated mind, may justly hope 
to please, without even any superior advantages of person, 
the loveliest creature that ever came from the hand of her 
Creator, can hope only for a transitory empire, unless she 
unite with her beauty the more durable charm of intellec- 
tual excellence. 

The favored child of nature, who combines in herself 
these united perfections, may be justly considered as the 
masterpiece of the creation, as the most perfect image of 
the Divinity here below. Man, the proud lord of the 
creation, bows willingly his haughty neck beneath her 
gentle rule. Exalted, tender, beneficent, is the love that 
she inspires. Even Time himself shall respect the all- 
powerful magic of her beauty. Her charms may fade, 
but they shall never wither; and memory still, in the 
evening of fife, hanging with fond affection over the 
blanched rose, shall view, through the veil of lapsed years, 
the tender bud, the dawning promise, whose beauties once 
blushed before the beams of the morning sun. 

Literary Gazette. 



The Story of a disabled Soldier. 
I was born in Shropshire ; my father was a laborer, and 
died when I was five years old; so I was put upon the 



82 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 

parish. As he had been a wandering sort of a man, the 
parishioners were not able to tell to what parish I belonged, 
or where I was born; so they sent me to another parish, 
and that parish sent me to a third. I thought in my heart, 
they kept sending me about so long, that they would not 
let me be born in any parish at all; but at last, however, 
they fixed me. I had some disposition to be a scholar, 
and was resolved, at least, to know my letters ; but the 
master of the workhouse put me to business as soon as I 
was able to handle a mallet; and here I lived an easy kind 
<tf life for five years. I only wrought ten hours in the day, 
and had my meat and drink provided for my labour. It 
is true, I was not suffered to stir out of the house, for fear, 
as they said, I should run away; but what of that? I had 
the liberty of the whole house, and the yard before the 
door, and that was enough for me. I was then bound out 
to a farmer, where I was up both early and late ; but I ate 
and drank well, and liked my business well enough, till 
he died, when I was obliged to provide for myself; so I 
was resolved to go seek my fortune. 

In this manner I went from town to town, worked 
when I could get employment, and starved when I could 
get none : when, happening one day to go through a field 
belonging to a justice of peace, I spied a hare crossing the 
path just before me; I flung my stick at it: — well, what 
will you have on't? I killed the hare, and was bringing 
it away, when the justice himself met me: he called me a 
poacher and a villain; and, collaring me, desired I would 
give an account of myself. I fell upon my knees, begged 
his worship's pardon, and began to give a full account of 
all that I knew of my histoiy; but, tho I gave a very true 
account, the justice said I could give no account; so I 
was indicted at sessions, found guilty of being poor, and 
sent up to London to Newgate, in order to be transported 
as a vagabond. 

People may say this and that of being in jail, but, for 
my part, I found Newgate as agreeable a place as ever I 
was in in all my life. I had plenty to eat and drink, and 
did no work at all. This kind of life was too good to last 
for ever; so I was taken out of prison, after five months, 
put on board a ship, and sent off, with two hundred more, 
to the plantations. We had but an indifferent passage, 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 83 

for, being all confined in the hold, more than a hundred 
of our people died for want of sweet air; and those that 
remained were sickly enough. When we came ashore, 
we were sold to the planters, and I was bound for seven 
years more. As I was no scholar, for I did not know my 
letters, I was obliged to work among the negroes ; and I 
served out my time, as in duty bound to do. 

When my time was expired, I worked my passage 
home, and glad I was to see Old England again, because 
I loved my country. I was afraid, however, that I should 
be indicted for a vagabond once more, so did not much 
care to go down into the country, but kept about the 
town, and did little jobs when I could get them. 

I was very happy in this manner for some time, till one 
evening, coming home from work, two men knocked me 
down, and then desired me to stand. They belonged to 
a press-gang; I was carried before the justice, and, as I 
could give no account of myself, I had my choice left, 
whether to go on board a man of war, or list for a soldier: 
I chose the latter; and, in this post of a gentleman, I 
served two campaigns in Flanders, was at the battles of 
Val and Fontenoy, and received but one wound, through 
the breast here ; but the doctor of our regiment soon made 
me well again. 

When the peace came on, I was discharged; and, as 
I could not work, because my wound was sometimes 
troublesome, I listed for a landman in the East India 
Company's service. I have fought the French in six 
pitched battles; and I verily believe that, if I could read 
or write, our captain would have made me a corporal. 
But it was not my good fortune to have any promotion, 
for I soon fell sick, and so got leave to return home again 
with forty pounds in my pocket. This was at the be- 
ginning of the present war, and I hoped to be set on shore, 
and to have the pleasure of spending my money ; but the 
government wanted men, and so I was pressed for a sailor 
before ever I could set foot on shore. 

The boatswain foimd me, as he said, an obstinate fel- 
low: insisted that I understood my business, but that 
I liked to be idle: but I knew nothing of sea-business, 
and he beat me, without considering what he was about. 
I had still, however, my forty pounds, and that was some 



84 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 

comfort to me under every beating; and the money I 
might have had to this day, but that our ship was taken 
by the French, and so I lost all. 

Our crew was carried into Brest, and many of them 
died, because they were not used to live in a jail ; but, for 
my part, it was nothing to me, for I was seasoned. One 
night, as I was asleep on the bed of boards, with a warm 
blanket about me, for I always loved to lie well, I was 
awakened by the boatswain, who had a dark lantern in 
his hand: "Jack," says he to me, "will you knock out 
the French sentry's brains?" I don t care, says I, striving 
to keep myself awake, if I lend a hand. " Then follow 
me," says he, " and I hope we shall do business." So up 
I got, and went with him to fight the Frenchmen. I hate 
the French, because they are all slaves, and wear wooden 
shoes. 

Though we had no arms, one Englishman is able to 
beat five French at any time : so we went down to the 
door, where both the sentries were posted, and, rushing 
upon them, seized their arms in a moment, and knocked 
them down. From thence nine of us ran together to the 
quay, and seizing the first boat we met, got out of the 
harbor, and put to sea. We had not been here three 
days before we were taken up by the Dorset privateer, 
who were glad of so many good hands, and we consented 
to run our chance, However, we had not as much good 
luck as we expected. In three days we fell in with the 
Pompadour privateer, of forty guns, while we had but 
twenty- three; so to it we went, yard-arm and yard-arm. 
The fight lasted for three hours, and I verily believe we 
should have taken the Frenchman, had we but had some 
more men left behind: but, unfortunately we lost all our 
men just as we were going to get the victory. 

I was once more in the power of the French, and I be- 
lieve it would have gone hard with me had I been brought 
back to Brest; but, by good fortune, we were retaken by 
the Viper. I had almost forgot to tell you, that, in that 
engagement, I was wounded in two places; I lost four 
fingers off the left hand, and my leg was shot off. If I 
had had the good fortune to have lost my leg and use of 
my hand on board a king's ship, and not aboard a priva- 
teer, I should have been entitled to clothing and main- 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 85 

tenance during the rest of my life ! but that was not my 
chance. One man's born with a silver spoon in his 
mouth, and another with a wooden ladle. However, I 
enjoy good health, and will for ever love liberty and Old 
England. Liberty, property, and Old England for ever, 
huzza! 

Thus saying, he limped off, leaving me in admiration at 
his intrepidity and content; nor could I avoid acknow- 
ledging, that an habitual acquaintance with misery serves 
better than philosophy to teach us to despise it. 

Goldsmith. 



Remarks on Homer, the Bible, Dante, and Ossian. 

In Homer, the principle of action, or life, is predomi- 
nant; in the Bible, the principle of faith, and the idea of 
providence; Dante is a personification of blind will; and 
in Ossian we see the decay of life, and the lag-end of the 
world. Homer s poetry is the heroic: it is full of life and 
action: it is bright as the day, strong as a river. In the 
vigor of his intellect, he grapples with all the objects of 
nature, and enters into all the relations of social life. He 
saw many countries, and the manners of many men; and 
he has brought them altogether in his poem. He describes 
his heroes going to battle with a prodigality of life, arising 
from an exuberance of animal spirits : we see them before 
us, their number, and their order of battle, poured out 
upon the plain, " all plumed like ostriches, like eagles 
newly bathed, wanton as goats, wild as young bulls, 
youthful as May, and gorgeous as the sun at mid-sum- 
mer, " covered with glittering armor, with dust and blood ; 
while the gods quaff their nectar in golden cups, or mingle 
in the fray; and the old men assembled on the walls of 
Troy, rise up with reverence as Helen passes by them* 
The multitude of things in Homer is wonderful; their 
splendor, their truth, their force, and variety. His poetry 
is, like his religion, the poetry of number and form: he 
describes the bodies as well as the souls of men. 

The poetry of the Bible is that of imagination and of 
faith: it is abstract and disembodied: it is not the poetry 
of form, but of power; not of multitude, but of immen- 
sity. It does not divide into many, but aggrandizes into 
i 



86 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 

one. Its ideas of nature are like its ideas of God. It is 
not the poetry of social life, but of solitude: each man 
seems alone in the world, with the original forms of 
nature, the rocks, the earth, and the sky. It is not the 
poetry of action or heroic enterprise, but of faith in a 
supreme providence, and resignation to the power that 
governs the universe. As the idea of God was removed 
farther from humanity, and a scattered polytheism, it be- 
came more profound and intense, it became more univer- 
sal, for the Infinite is present to every thing: " If we flee 
into the uttermost parts of the earth, it is there also; if 
we turn to the east or the west, we cannot escape from 
it." Man is thus aggrandized in the image of his Maker. 
The history of the patriarchs is of this kind; they are 
founders of a chosen race of people, the inheritors of the 
earth; they exist in the generations that are to come after 
them. Their poetry, like their religious creed, is vast, 
unformed, obscured, and infinite ; a vision is upon it — an 
invisible'ihand is suspended over it. The spirit of the 
Christian religion consists in the glory hereafter to be re- 
vealed; but in the Hebrew dispensation, providence took 
an immediate share in the affairs of this life. Jacob's 
dream arose out of this intimate communion between 
heaven and earth: it was this that let down, in the sight 
of the youthful patriarch, a golden ladder from the sky to 
the earth, with angels ascending and descending upon it, 
and shed a light upon the lonely place, which can never 
pass away. The story of Ruth, again, is as if all the 
depth of natural affection in the human race, were in- 
volved in her breast. There are descriptions in the book 
of Job more prodigal of imagery, more intense in passion, 
than any thing in Homer, as that of the state of his pros- 
perity, and of the vision that came upon him by night. 
The metaphors are more boldly figurative. Things were 
collected more into masses, and gave a greater momentum 
to the imagination. 

Dante was the father of modern poetry, and he may 
therefore claim a place in this connection. His poem is 
the first great step from Gothic darkness and barbarism; 
and the struggle of thought in it to burst the thraldom in 
which the human mind had been so long held, is felt in 
every page. He stood bewildered, not appalled, on that 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 87 

dark shore, which separates the ancient and the modern 
world; and saw the glories of antiquity dawning through 
the abyss of time, while revelation opened its passage to 
the other world. He was lost in wonder at what had 
been done before him, and he dared to emulate it. Dante 
seems to have been indebted to the Bible for the gloomy 
tone of his mind, as well as for the prophetic fury which 
exalts and kindles his poetry; but he is utterly unlike 
Homer. His genius is not a sparkling flame, but the 
sullen heat of a furnace. He is power, passion, self-will, 
personified. In all that relates to the descriptive or fanci- 
ful part of poetry, he bears no comparison to many that 
had gone before, or who have come after him ; but there 
is a gloomy abstraction in his conceptions, which lies like 
a dead weight upon the mind; a benumbing stupor, a 
breathless awe, from the intensity of the impression; a 
terrible obscurity, like that which oppresses us in dreams ; 
an identity of interest, which moulds every object to its 
own purpose, and clothes all things with the passions and 
imaginations of the human soul, — that make amends for 
all other deficiencies. The immediate objects he presents 
to the mind, are not much in themselves, they want 
grandeur, beauty, and order; but they become every 
thing by the force of the character he impresses upon 
them. His mind lends its own power to the objects 
which it contemplates, instead of borrowing it from them. 
He takes advantage even of the nakedness and dreary 
vacuity of his subject. His imagination peoples the 
shades of death, and broods over the silent air. He is the 
severest of all writers, the most hard and impenetrable, 
the most opposite to the flowery and glittering; who re- 
lies most on his own power, and the sense of it in others, 
and who leaves most room to the imagination of his 
readers. Dante's only object is to interest; and he in- 
terests only by exciting our sympathy, with the emotion 
by which he is himself possessed. He does not place 
before us the objects by which that emotion has been ex- 
cited; but he seizes on the attention, by showing us the 
effect they produce on his feelings ; and his poetiy accord- 
ingly gives the same thrilling and overwhelming sensation, 
which is caught by gazing on the face of a person who 
has seen some object of horror. The improbability of the 



88 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 

events, the abruptness and monotony of the Inferno, are 
excessive; but the interest never flags, from the intense 
earnestness of the authors mind. Dante's great power 
is in combining internal feelings with external objects. 
Thus* the gate of hell, on which that withering inscrip- 
tion is written, seems to be endowed with speech and 
consciousness, and to utter its dread warning, not without 
a sense of mortal woes. This author habitually unites the 
absolutely local and individual with the greatest wildness 
and mysticism. In the midst of the obscure and shadowy 
regions of the lower world, a tomb suddenly rises up with 
this inscription, "I am the tomb of Pope Anastasius the 
Sixth:" and half the personages whom he has crowded 
into the Inferno, frre his own acquaintance. All this, per- 
haps, tends to heighten the effect by the bold intermixture 
of realities, and the appeal, as it were, to the individual 
knowledge and experience of the reader. He affords few 
subjects for picture. There is, indeed, one gigantic one, 
that of Count Ugolino, of which Michael Angelo made a 
bas-relief, and which Sir Joshua Reynolds ought not to 
have painted. 

Another writer whom I shall mention last, and whom 
I cannot persuade myself to think a mere modern in the 
ground work, is Ossian. He is a feeling and a name that 
can never be destroyed in the minds of his readers. As 
Homer is the first vigor and lustihood, Ossian is the decay 
and old age of poetry. He lives only in the recollection 
and regret of the past. There is one feeling which he 
gives us more entirely than all other poets, namely, the 
sense of privation, the loss of all things, of friends, of good 
name, of country — he is even without God in the world. 
He converses only with the spirits of the departed; with 
the motionless and silent clouds. The cold moon-light 
shades its faint lustre on his head; the fox peeps out of 
the ruined tower; the thistle shakes its beard to the pass- 
ing gale; and the strings of his harp seem as the hand of 
age, as the tale of other times, passes over them, to sigh 
and rustle like the diy reeds in the winter's wind! The 
feeling of cheerless desolation, of the loss of the pith and 
sap of existence, of the annihilation of the substance, and 
incorporating the shadow of all things as in a mock em- 
brace, is here perfect. In this way, the lamentation of 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 89 

Selma, for the loss of Salgar, is the finest of all. If it 
were indeed possible to show that this writer was nothing, 
it would only be another instance of mutability, another 
blank made, another void left in the heart, another con- 
firmation of that feeling*, which makes him so often chide 
his lingering fate; " Roll on, ye dark brown years, ye 
bring no joy on your wing to Ossiani" Hazlitt 



On Genius and Fame. 
Genius is the heir of fame; but the hard condition on 
which the blight reversion must be earned, is the loss of 
life. Fame is the recompense, not of the living, but of 
the dead. The temple of fame stands upon the grave: 
the flame that burns upon its altars is kindled from the 
ashes of great men. Fame itself is immortal, but it is not 
begot till the breath of genius is extinguished. For fame 
is not popularity, the shout of the multitude, the idle buzz 
of fashion, the venal puff, the soothing flattery of favor or 
of friendship, but it is the spirit of a man surviving him- 
self in the minds and thoughts of other men, undying and 
unperishable. It is the power which the intellect exer- 
cises over the intellect, and the lasting homage which is 
paid to it, as such, independently of time and circum- 
stances, purified from partiality and evil speaking. Fame 
is the sound which the stream of high thoughts, carried 
down to future ages, makes as it flows — deep, distant, 
murmuring evermore, like the waters of the mighty ocean. 
He who has ears truly touched to this music, is in a man- 
ner deaf to the voice of popularity. The love of fame dif- 
fers from mere vanity in this, that the one is immediate 
and personal, the other ideal and abstracted. It is not 
the direct and gross homage paid to himself, that the lover 
of true fame seeks or is proud of; but the indirect and 
pure homage paid to the eternal forms of truth and 
beauty, as they are reflected in his mind, that gives him 
confidence and hope. The love of nature is the first thing 
in the mind of the time poet: the admiration of himself, 
the last. A man of genius cannot well be a coxcomb; 
for his mind is too full of other things to be much occu- 
pied with his own person. He who is conscious of great 



90 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 

powers in himself, has also a high standard of excellence 
with which to compare his efforts: he appeals also to a 
test and judge of merit, which is the highest, but which 
is too remote, grave, and impartial, to flatter his self-love 
extravagantly, or puff him up with intolerable and vain 
conceit. This, indeed, is one test of genius and of real 
greatness of mind, whether a man can wait patiently and 
calmly for the award of posterity, satisfied with the un- 
wearied exercise of his faculties, retired within the sanc- 
tuary of his own thoughts; or whether he is eager to fore- 
stal his own immortality, and mortgage it for a newspaper 
puff. He who thinks much of himself, will be in danger 
of being forgotten by the rest of the world: he who is al- 
ways trying to lay violent hands on reputation, will not 
secure the best and most lasting. If the restless candidate 
for praise takes no pleasure, no sincere and heartfelt de- 
light in his works, but as they are admired and applauded 
by others, what should others see in them to admire or 
applaud? They cannot be expected to admire them, be- 
cause they are his; but for the truth and nature contained 
in them; which must first be inly felt and copied with 
severe delight, from the love of truth and nature, before 
it can ever appear there. Was Raphael, think you, when 
he painted his pictures of the Virgin and Child, in all their 
inconceivable truth of beauty and expression, thinking most 
of his subject, or of himself? Do you suppose that Titian, 
when he painted a landscape, was pluming himself on be- 
ing thought the finest colorist in the world, or making 
himself so by looking at Nature? Do you imagine that 
Shakespeare, when he wrote Lear or Othello, was thinking 
of any thing but Lear and Othello? Or that Mr. Kean, 
when he plays these characters, is thinking of the audi- 
ence? — No: he who would be great in the eyes of others, 
must first learn to be nothing in his own. The love of fame, 
as it enters at times into his mind, is only another name 
for the love of excellence ; or it is the ambition to attain the 
highest excellence, sanctioned by the highest authority — 
that of time. Hazlitt 

Letter on Punning. 
When you have leisure from teaching the world to think 
and to feel in matters of vital importance to the commu- 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 91 

nity, I beg leave to recommend to your notice a minor 
evil, which, by poisoning the springs of taste and know- 
ledge, by bringing forward the flippant, and throwing back 
the reflective speaker, tends to embitter and destroy all 
the profit and pleasure of conversation; I allude to the 
vice of punning. It is my fate to mix with a knot of in- 
dividuals, each of them capable of sustaining a part in ra- 
tional discourse, and of bringing to the intellectual conflict 
minds armed with vigor, and stored with learning; who, 
nevertheless, meet together to fritter away time, patience, 
and attention, with a series of unconnected quibbles and 
conceits. Their talk is not narrative, for nothing is re- 
lated; not demonstrative, for nothing is maintained;' not 
dictated, for nothing can be learned; not argumentative, 
for nothing can be proved; not confidential, for nothing 
can be believed. Instead of the rich web of fancy glowing 
with the vivid creations of lively and intelligent minds, the 
hearers are presented with a motely intermixture of shreds 
of wit and patches of conceit — a chequer-work of incon- 
gruous images — the very orts and leavings of the " Feast 
of Reason," — the dregs and scum of science and litera- 
ture. If I relate to this group of punsters the most af- 
fecting circumstance, I am heard with impatience and in- 
attention, till I chance, unwittingly, to utter a word sus- 
ceptible of a double or triple interpretation. The mis- 
chievous spark of folly is applied; the moral interest of 
my tale is undermined, and a loud report of laughter an- 
nounces the explosion of folly. The Genius of Ortho- 
graphy frowns in vain; puns are, by the laws of custom, 
entitled to claim entrance into the sensorium, either by 
the eye or the ear; but when a pseudo-pun (" for indeed 
there are counterfeits abroad, and it behoves men to be 
careful") is perceptible to either sense, — when read, it 
cannot be seen, and when heard, it cannot be understood, 
to avoid the horror of an explanation, I find myself obliged 
to perjure myself, by laughing in ignorance and very sad- 
ness, and thus sanction the practice I would fain abolish. 
The evil, in fact, is subversive of the first principle of so- 
ciety. Is it little to hunger for the bread of wisdom, and 
to be fed with the husks of folly? Is it little to thirst for 
the Castalian fount, and see its waters idly wasted in 
sport or malice? Is it little to seek for the interchange of 
souls, and find only the reciprocation of nonsense? Anon* 



92 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 



The Gamester. 
No man who has not not felt, can possibly image to 
himself the tortures of a gamester, — of a gamester like 
me, who played for the improvement of his fortune, who 
played with the recollection of a wife and children, clearer 
to him than the blood that bubbled through the arteries of 
his heart, who might be said, like the savages of ancient 
Germany, to make these relations the stake for which he 
threw — who saw all my own happiness and all theirs, 
through the long visto of life, depending on the turn of a 
card! All bodily racks and torments are nothing, com- 
pared with certain states of the human mind. The game- 
ster would be the most pitiable, if he were not the most 
despicable creature that exists. Arrange ten bits of painted 
paper in a certain order, and he is ready to go wild with 
the extravagance of his joy. He is only restrained by 
some remains of shame, from dancing about the room, 
and displaying the vileness of his spirit by every sort of 
freak and absurdity. At another time, when his hopes 
have been gradually worked up into a paroxysm, an un- 
expected turn arrives, and he is made the most miserable 
of men. Never shall I cease to recollect the sensation I 
have repeatedly felt, in the instantaneous sinking of the 
spirits, the conscious fire that spread over my visage, the 
anger in my eye, the burning dryness of my throat, the 
sentiment that in a moment was ready to overwhelm with 
curses, the cards, the stake, my own existence, and all man- 
kind. How eveiy malignant and insufferable passion seemed 
to rush upon my soul! What nights of dreadful solitude 
and despair did I repeatedly pass during the progress of my 
ruin ! — It was the night of the soul! My mind was wrapped 
in a gloom that could not be pierced ! My heart was op- 
pressed with a weight, that no power, human or divine, 
was equal to remove ! My eyelids seemed to press down- 
ward with an invincible burthen ! My eyeballs were ready 
to start and burst their sockets ! I lay motionless, the vic- 
tim of ineffable horror! The whole endless night seemed 
to be filled with one vast, appalling, immoveable idea! It 
was a stupor, more insupportable and tremendous, than 
the utmost whirl of pain, or the fiercest agony of exquisite 
perception. Godwin* 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 93 



On the Importance of the Purity of the Female Character 
to t/ie general Interests of Society. 

It is needless, we hope, to go deep into the inquiry, 
why certain compositions have been reprobated as licen- 
tious, and their authors ranked among the worst enemies 
of morality. The criterion by which their delinquency 
may be determined, is fortunately very obvious ; no scene 
can be tolerated in description, which could not be con- 
templated in reality, without a gross violation of propriety; 
no expression can be pardoned in poetry, to which delicacy 
could not listen in the prose of real life. 

The reserve in which women are educated ; the natural 
vivacity of their imaginations; and the warmth of their 
sensibility, render them peculiarly liable to be captivated 
by the appearance of violent emotions, and to be misled 
by the affectation of tenderness or generosity. They easily 
receive any impression that is made under the apparent 
sanction of these feeling's ; and allow themselves to be se- 
duced into any thing, which they can be persuaded is 
dictated by disinterested attachment, and sincere and ex- 
cessive love. It is easy to perceive how dangerous it must 
be for such beings to hang over the pages of a book, in 
which supernatural raptures, and transcendant passion, 
are counterfeited in every page: in which images of vo- 
luptuousness are artfully blended with expressions of re- 
fined sentiment, and delicate emotion; and the grossest 
sensuality is exhibited in conjunction with the most gentle 
and generous affections. They who have not learned from 
experience, the impossibility of such an union, are apt to 
be captivated by its alluring exterior: they are seduced 
by their own ignorance and sensibility; and become fa- 
miliar with the demon, for the sake of the radiant angel 
to whom he has been linked by the malignant artifice of 
the poet. 

There can be no time in which the purity of the female 
character can fail to be of the first importance to every 
community; but it appears to us, that it requires at this 
moment to be more carefully watched over than at any 
other; and that the constitution of society has arrived 
among us at a sort of crisis, the issue of which may be 
powerfully influenced by our present neglect or solicitude. 



94 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS, 

From the increasing diffusion of opulence, enlightened or 
polite society is greatly enlarged, and necessarily becomes 
more promiscuous and corruptible; and women are now 
beginning to receive a more extended education, to ven- 
ture more freely and largely into the fields of literature, 
and to become more of intellectual and independent crea- 
tures, than they have yet been in these islands. In these 
circumstances, it seems to be of incalculable importance, 
that no attaint should be given to the delicacy and purity 
of their expanding minds; that their increasing knowledge 
should be chiefly of good, and not of evil; that they should 
not consider modesty as one of the prejudices from which 
they are now to be emancipated; nor found any part of 
their new influence upon the licentiousness of which some 
authors invite them to be partakers. The character and 
the morality of women exercises already a mighty influ- 
ence upon the happiness and the respectability of the na- 
tion; and it is destined, we believe, to exercise a still 
higher one ; but if they should ever cease to be the pure, 
the delicate, and the timid creatures that they now are — 
if they should cease to overawe profligacy, and to win and 
to shame men into decency, fidelity, and love of unsullied 
virtue — it is easy to see that this influence, which has 
hitherto been exerted to strengthen and refine society, 
will operate entirely to its corruption and debasement; 
that domestic happiness and private honor will be extin- 
guished, and public spirit and national industry most pro- 
bably annihilated along with them. JEdin. Review. 



IWW« W WW)WIXW<W? J VWW»VI 



On Calumny. 

It is not the insolence of the haughty, however, which 
is the only disquieter of others. There is a power in every 
individual, over the tranquillity of almost every individual. 
There are emotions, latent in the minds of those whom 
we meet, which a few words of ours may at any time call 
forth; and the moral influence which keeps this power 
over the uneasy feelings of others under due restraint, is 
not the least important of the moral influences, in its re- 
lation to general happiness. 

There are minds which can delight in exercising this 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 95 

cruel sway, — which rejoice in suggesting thoughts that 
may poison the confidence of friends, and render the very 
virtues that were loved, objects of suspicion to him who 
loved them. In the daily and hourly intercourse of hu- 
man life, there are human beings, who exert their mali- 
cious skill, in devising what subjects may be most likely 
to bring into the mind of him with whom they converse, 
the most mortifying remembrances; — who pay visits of 
condolence, that they may be sure of making grief a little 
more severely felt ; — who are faithful in conveying to every 
one the whispers of unmerited scandal, of which, other- 
wise, he never would have heard, as he never could have 
suspected them, — tho, in exercising this friendly office, 
they are careful to express sufficient indignation against 
the slanderer, and to bring forward as many grounds of 
suspicion against different individuals, as their fancy can 
call up ; — who talk to some disappointed beauty, of all the 
splendid preparations for the marriage of her rival, — to the 
unfortunate dramatic poet, of the success of last night's 
piece, and of the great improvement which has taken 
place in modern taste ; and who, if they could have the 
peculiar good fortune of meeting with any one, whose fa- 
ther was hanged, would probably find no subject so at- 
tractive to their eloquence, as the number of executions 
that were speedily to take place. 

Such power man may exercise over the feelings of man; 
and, as it is impossible to frame laws which can compre- 
hend injuries of this sort, such power man may exercise 
over man with legal impunity. But it is a power, of 
which the virtuous man will as little think of availing 
himself, for purposes of cruelty, as if a thousand laws 
had made it as criminal as it is immoral, — a power, which 
he will as little think of exercising, because it would re- 
quire only the utterance of a few words, as of inflicting a 
mortal blow, because it would require only a single mo- 
tion of his hand. jBroivn. 



The Veteran Profligate. 
There is one species of corruption, however, which is 
exercised from a love of the corruption itself, or, at least, 
from the mere pleasure of companionship in guilt, — a spirit 



96 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 

of malicious proselytism, which forms the last dreadful 
stage in vice ; when the grey-headed veteran of debauch- 
eries, that began in youth, and have been matured by a 
long life of unceasing excess in all that is gross and de- 
praved, till he has acquired a sort of oracular gravity of 
profligacy, among gayer profligates, — collects around him 
his band of youthful disciples, whom he has gathered, 
wherever his watchful eye could mark out another and 
another victim, — relates to them the tales of merriment of 
other years, as an excitement to present passions, — observes 
in each the few virtues which will need, even yet, to be re- 
pressed, the irresolute vices that will require to be strength- 
ened, and if, in some ingenuous cheek, a blush should 
still arise, marks it with a sort of joy, that almost calcu- 
lates the moment of triumph, when that blush shall have 
been washed away, to appear again no more. If there be 
a being on this earth whom it is permitted to us to hate, 
with full and absolute detestation, it is surely a human 
demon like this; and if we could trace through all its 
haunts, the licentiousness of a great city, — from the 
splendid gaming-house of the rich, to the obscure cham- 
ber of vulgar riot, in which the dissolute of another order, 
assemble to plan the frauds or robberies of the night, or 
to turn to the only uses to which they know how to turn 
them, the frauds or robberies of the preceding day, — of 
how many demons of this class should we trace the hor- 
rible power, in the lessons which they are giving, and the 
results of lessons which have been given! Brmvn. 



On Education. 
That such an education is to be given in every case, as 
is suitable to the pecuniary circumstances of the parents, 
and to the rank which the child may be expected after- 
wards to fill, there is probably no one who would deny, 
however much individuals may differ as to the meaning 
of the term education. In the lowest rank of life — at least 
in far the greater part even of civilized Europe,— it means 
nothing more, than the training of the hands to a certain 
species of motion, which forms one of the subdivisions of 
mechanical industry. In the higher ranks, it implies, in 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 97 

like manner, a certain training of the limbs to a series of 
motions, which are, however, not motions of mere utility > 
like those of the artisan, but of grace, — and, in addition 
to those bodily movements, a training of the mind to a 
due command of certain graceful forms of expression — to 
which, in a few happier cases, is added the knowledge, 
more or less extensive and accurate, of the most striking 
truths of science. When all this is performed, education 
is thought to be complete. To express this completion, 
by the strongest possible word, the individual is said to 
be accomplished; and if graceful motions of the limbs, and 
motions of the tongue, in well-turned phrases of courteous 
elegance, — and a knowledge of some of the brilliant ex- 
pressions of poets, and arts, and orators, of different coun- 
tries, — of a certain number of the qualities of the masses 
or atoms which surround him, were sufficient to render 
man what God intended him to be, — the parent who had 
taken every necessary care for adorning his child with 
these bodily and mental graces, might truly exult in the 
consciousness that he had done his part to the generation 
which was to succeed, by accomplishing at least one in- 
dividual, for the noble duties which he had to perform 
in it. But if the duties, which man has to perform, 
whatever ornament they may receive from the corporeal 
and intellectual graces that may flow around them, imply 
the operation of principles of action of a very different 
kind— if it is in the heart that we are to seek the source 
of the feelings which are our noblest distinction, — with 
which, we are what even God may almost approve, and 
without which, we are worthy of the condemnation even 
of beings frail and guilty as ourselves; and, if the heart 
require to be protected from vice, with far more care than 
the understanding itself, fallible as it is, to be protected 
from error, — can he, indeed, lay claim to the praise of 
having discharged the parental office of education, who 
has left the heart to its own passions, while he has con- 
tented himself with furnishing to those passions, the means 
of being more extensively baneful to the world than, with 
less accomplished selfishness, they could have been? 

How many parents do we see, who, after teaching their 
sons, by example, every thing which is licentious in man- 
ners, and lavishing on them the means of similar licen^ 

K 



98 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 

tiousness, are rigid only in one point — in the strictness of 
that intellectual discipline, which may prepare them for 
the worldly stations, to which the parental ambition has 
been unceasingly looking for them, before the filial ambi- 
tion was rendered sufficiently intent of itself! — how many, 
who allow to the vices of the day full liberty, if the lesson 
of the day be duly meditated; and who are content that 
those whose education they direct, should be knaves and 
sensualists, if only they be fitted, by intellectual culture, 
to be the leaders of other knaves, and the acquirers of 
wealth, that may render their sensuality more delicately 
luxurious! To such persons, the mind of the little crea- 
ture, whom they are training to worldly stations for worldly 
purposes, is an object of interest only as that, without 
which it would be impossible to arrive at the dignities 
expected. It is a necessary instrument for becoming rich 
and powerful ; and, if he could become powerful, and rich, 
and envied, without a soul, — exhibit the same spectacle 
of magnificent luxury, and be capable of adding to the 
means of present pomp, what might furnish out a luxury 
still more magnificent — they would scarcely feel that he 
was a being less noble than now. In what they term 
education, they never once thought, that the virtues were 
to be included as objects ; and they would truly feel some- 
thing very like astonishment, if they were told, that the 
first and most essential part of the process of educating 
the moral being, whom Heaven had consigned to their 
charge, was yet to be begun — in the abandonment of their 
own vices, and the purification of their own heart, by better 
feelings than those which had corrupted it, — without which 
primary self-amendment, the very authority that is implied 
in the noble office which they were to exercise, might be 
a source, not of good, but of evil, to him who was unfor- 
tunately born to be its subject. Brown. 



The most Horrible Battle ever recorded in Poetry or Prose; 
with the Heroic Exploits of Peter the Headstrong. 
" Now had the Dutchmen snatched a huge repast," and 
finding themselves wonderfully encouraged and animated 
thereby, prepared to take the field. Expectation, says 
the writer of the Stuyvesant manuscript — Expectation now 






MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 99 

stood on stilts. The world forgot to turn round, or rather 
stood still, that it might witness the affray; like a fat 
round-bellied alderman, watching the combat of two chival- 
ric flies upon his jerkin. The eyes of all mankind, as usual 
in such cases, were turned upon Fort Christina. The sun, 
like a little man in a crowd at a puppet-show, scampered 
about the heavens, popping his head here and there, and 
endeavoring to get a peep between the unmannerly clouds 
that obtruded themselves in his way. The historians filled 
their inkhoms — the poets went without their dinners, either 
that they might buy paper and goose-quills, or because 
they could not get any thing to eat. Antiquity scowled 
sulkily out of its grave, to see itself outdone — while even 
Posterity stood mute, gazing in gaping ecstasy of retro- 
spection on the eventful field. The immortal deities who 
whilom had seen service at the " affair " of Troy — now 
mounted their feather-bed clouds, and sailed over the 
plain, or mingled among the combatants in different dis- 
guises, all itching to have a finger in the pie. Jupiter 
sent off his thunderbolt to a noted coppersmith, to have 
it furbished up for direful occasion. Venus swore by 
her chastity, she'd patronize the Swedes, and in sem- 
blance of a blear-eyed trull, paraded the battlements of 
Fort Christina, accompanied by Diana, as a Serjeant's wi- 
dow, of cracked reputation. The noted bully, Mars, 
stuck two horse-pistols into his belt, shouldered a rusty 
firelock, and gallantly swaggered at their elbow, as a 
drunken corporal — while Apollo trudged in their rear, as 
bandy-legged fifer, playing most villanously out of tune. 

On the other side, the ox-eyed Juno, who had gained 
a pair of black eyes over night, in one of her curtain lec- 
tures with old Jupiter, displayed her haughty beauties on 
a baggage-waggon. Minerva, as a brawny gin-suttler, 
tucked up her skirts, brandished her fists, and swore most 
heroically, in exceeding bad Dutch (having but lately 
studied the language), by way of keeping up the spirits of 
the soldiers; while Vulcan halted as a club-footed black- 
smith, lately promoted to be a captain of militia. All was 
silent horror, or bustling preparation: War reared his 
horrid front, gnashed loud his iron fangs, and shook his 
direful crest of bristling bayonets. And now the mighty 
chieftains marshalled out their hosts. Here stood stout 



100 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 

Risingh, firm as a thousand rocks — incrusted with stock- 
ades, and entrenched to the chin in mud batteries. His 
artillery, consisting of two swivels and a carronade, loaded 
to the muzzle, the touch-holes primed, and a whiskered 
bombardier stationed at each, with lighted match in hand, 
waiting the word. His valiant infantry lined the breast- 
work in grim array, each having his mustachios fiercely 
greased, and his hair pomatumed back, and queued so 
stiffly, that he grinned above the ramparts like a grisly 
death's head. 

Then came On the intrepid Peter — his brows knit, his 
teeth set, his fists clenched, almost breathing forth volumes 
of smoke, so fierce was the fire that raged within his bo- 
som. His faithful squire, Van Corlear, trudged valiantly 
at his heels, with his trumpet gorgeously bedecked with 
red and yellow ribands, the remembrances of his fair mis- 
tresses at the Manhattoes. Then came waddling on the 
sturdy chivalry of the Hudson, with a host of worthies, 
whose names are too crabbed to be written, or if they 
could be written, it would be impossible for man to utter 
— all fortified with a mighty dinner, and to use the words 
of a great Dutch poet, 

" Brimful of wrath and cabbage!" 

For an instant the mighty Peter paused in the midst of 
his career, and mounting on a stump, addressed his troops 
in eloquent low Dutch, exhorting them to fight like duyvels, 
and assuring them, that, if they conquered, they should get 
plenty of booty — if they fell, they should be allowed the 
unparalleled satisfaction, while dying, of reflecting that it 
was in the service of their country — and after they were 
dead, of seeing their names inscribed in the temple of re- 
nown, and handed down, in company with all the other 
great men of the year, for the admiration of posterity. 
Finally, he swore to them, on the word of a governor (and 
they knew him too well to doubt it for a moment), that if 
he caught any mother's son of them looking pale, or play- 
ing craven, he would curry his hide till he made him run 
out of it, like a snake in spring-time. Then lugging out 
his trusty sabre, he brandished it three times over his head, 
ordered Van Corlear to sound a tremendous charge, and 
shouting the word " St. Nicholas and the Manhattoes!" 
courageously dashed forwards. His warlike followers, 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS, 101 

who had employed the interval in lighting their pipes, in- 
stantly stuck them in their mouths, gave a furious puff, 
and charged gallantly, under cover of the smoke. And 
now commenced the horrid din, the desperate struggle, 
the maddening ferocity, the frantic desperation, the con- 
fusion and self-abandonment of war. Dutchman and 
Swede commingled, tugged, panted, and blowed. The 
heavens were darkened with a tempest of missives. Bang ! 
went the guns — whack ! struck the broad- swords — thump ! 
went the cudgels — crash! went the musket-stocks — blows 
— kicks — cuffs — scratches — black eyes and bloody noses 
swelling the horrors of the scene! Thick -thwack, cut and 
hack helter-skelter, higgledy-pigledy, hurly-burly, head 
over heels, rough and tumble! — Dunder and blexum! 
swore the Dutchman — splitter and splutter! cried the 
Swedes — storm the works ! shouted Hardkoppig Peter — 
fire the mine! roared stout Risingh — Tartara-ra-ra! twang- 
ed the trumpet of Anthony Van Corlear — until all voice and 
sound became unintelligible — grunts of pain, yells of fury, 
and shouts of triumph comminged in one hideous clamor. 
The earth shook as if struck with a paralytic stroke — trees 
shrunk aghast, and withered at the sight — rocks burrowed 
in the ground like rabbits, — and even Christina Creek 
turned from its course, and ran up a mountain in breath- 
less terror! But what, oh muse! was the rage of the gal- 
lant Peter, when from afar, he saw his army yield? With a 
voice of thunder did he roar after his recreant warriors, put- 
ting up such a war-whoop as did the stern Achilles, when 
the Trojan troops were on the point of burning all his galleys. 
The men of the Manhattoes plucked up new courage, 
when they heard their leader — or rather they dreaded his 
fierce displeasure — of which they stood in more awe than 
of all the Swedes in Christendom — but the daring Peter, 
not waiting for their aid, plunged, sword in hand, into the 
thickest of the fo. Then did he display some such in- 
credible achievements as have never been known since the 
miraculous days of the giants. Wherever he went, the 
enemy shrunk before him; with fierce impetuosity, he 
pushed forward, driving the Swedes, like dogs, into their 
own ditch; but as he fearlessly advanced, the foe thronged 
upon his rear, and hung upon his flank with fearful peril. 
One crafty Swede, advancing warily on one side, drove 



102 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 

his dastard sword full at the hero's heart; but the pro- 
tecting power that watches over the safety of all great 
and good men, turned aside the hostile blade, and directed 
it to a side-pocket, where reposed an enormous iron to* 
bacco-box, endowed, like the shield of Achilles, with su- 
pernatural powers — no doubt, in consequence of its being 
piously decorated with a portrait of the blessed St. Ni- 
cholas. Thus was the dreadful blow repelled, but not with- 
out occasioning to the great Peter a fearful loss of wind. 
Like as a furious bear, when gored by worrying curs, turns 
fiercely round, gnashes his teeth, and springs upon the 
fo, so did our hero turn upon the treacherous Swede, 
The miserable varlet sought in flight for safety — but the 
active Peter, seizing him by an immeasurable queue that 
dangled from his head — " Ah, whoreson caterpillar," roared 
he, " here is what shall make dog's meat of thee ! " So say- 
ing, he whirled his trusty sword, and made a blow that 
would have decapitated him, had he, like Briareus, half 
a hundred heads, but that the pitying steel struck short, 
and shaved the queue for ever from his crown. At this 
very moment, a cunning arquebusier, perched on the 
summit of a neighbouring mound, levelled his deadly in- 
strument, and would have sent the gallant Stuyvesant a 
wailing ghost to haunt the Stygian shore, had not the watch- 
ful Minerva, who had just stopped to tie up her garters, 
saw the great peril of her favorite chief, and despatched 
old Boreas with his bellows, who, in the very nick of 
time, just as the direful match descended to the pan, gave 
such a lucky blast, as blew all the priming from the 
touch-hole. Thus waged the horrid fight, when the stout 
Risingh, surveying the battle from the top of a little 
ravelin, perceived his faithful troops banged, beaten, and 
kicked by the invincible Peter. Language cannot describe 
the choler with which he was seized at the sight — he only 
stopped for a moment to disburthen himself of five thou- 
sand anathemas; and then drawing his immeasurable 
falchion, straddled down to the field of combat, with some 
such thundering strides, as Jupiter is said by Hesiod to 
have taken, when he strode down the spheres, to hurl his 
thunderbolts at the Titans. No sooner did these two rival 
heroes come face to face, than they each made a prodigious 
start, such as is made by your most experienced stage 



i 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 103 

champions. Then did they regard each other for a mo- 
ment with bitter aspect, like two furious ram-cats on the 
very point of a clapper-clawing. Then did they throw 
themselves in one attitude, then in another, striking their 
swords on the ground, first on the right side, then on the 
left — at last at it they went with incredible ferocity. 
Words cannot tell the prodigies of strength and valor dis- 
played on this direful encounter — an encounter, compared 
to which, the far-famed battles of Ajax with Hector, of 
Eneas with Tumus, Orlando with Rodomont, Guy of 
Warwick with Colbrand the Dane, or of that renowned 
Welsh Knight, Sir Owen of the mountains, with the giant 
Guylon, were all gentle sports and holiday recreations. 
At length, the valiant Peter, watching his opportunity, 
aimed a fearful blow, with the full intention of cleaving 
his adversary to the very chine ; but Risingh, nimbly rais- 
ing his sword, warded it of so narrowly, that glancing on 
one side, it shaved away a huge canteen that he always 
carried swung on one side ; thence pursuing its trenchant 
course, it severed off a deep coat-pocket, stored with bread 
and cheese— all which dainties rolling among the armies, 
occasioned a fearful scrambling between the Swedes and 
Dutchmen, and made the general battle to wax ten times 
more furious than ever. Enraged to see his military stores 
thus wofully laid waste, the stout Risingh, collecting all 
his forces, aimed a mighty blow full at the hero's crest. 
In vain did his fierce little cocked hat oppose its course; 
the biting steel clove through the stubborn ram-beaver, 
and would infallibly have cracked his crown, but that the 
skull was of such adamantine hardness, that the brittle 
weapon shivered into pieces, shedding a thousand sparks, 
like beams of glory, round his grisly visage. 

Stunned with the blow, the valiant Peter reeled, turned 
up his eyes, and beheld fifty thousand suns, besides moons 
and stars, dancing about the firmament ; at length, missing 
his footing, by reason of his wooden leg, down he came 
on his seat of honor, with a crash that shook the surround- 
ing hills, and would infallibly have wracked his anatomical 
system, had he not been received into a cushion softer than 
velvet, which Providence, or Minerva, or St. Nicholas, or 
some kind cow, had benevolently prepared for his recep- 
tion. 



104 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 

The furious Risingh, in despite of that noble maxim, 
cherished by all true knights, that " fair play is a jewel," 
hastened to take advantage of the hero's fall; but just as 
he was stooping to give the fatal blow, the ever vigilant 
Peter bestowed him a sturdy thwack over the sconce with 
his wooden leg, that set some dozen chimes of bells ring- 
ing triple bob-majors in his cerebellum. The bewildered 
Swede staggered with the blow ; and, in the meantime, the 
wary Peter, espying a pocket-pistol lying hard by (which 
had dropped from the wallet of his faithful squire and 
trumpeter, Van Corlear, during his furious encounter with 
a drummer), discharged it full at the head of the reeling 
Risingh. Let not my reader mistake — it was not a mur- 
derous weapon, loaded with powder and ball, but a little 
sturdy stone bottle, charged to the muzzle with a double 
dram of true Dutch courage, which the knowing Van 
Corlear always carried about him, by way of replenish- 
ing his valor. The hideous missive sung through the 
air, and true to its course, as was the mighty fragment of a 
rock discharged at Hector by bully Ajax, encountered 
the huge head of the gigantic Swede with matchless vio- 
lence. 

This heaven-directed blow decided the eventful battle. 
The ponderous pericranium of General Jan Risingh sunk 
upon his breast; his knees tottered under him; a death-like 
torpor seized upon his Titan frame ; and he tumbled to the 
earth with such tremendous violence, that old Pluto started 
with affright, lest he should have broken through the roof 
of his infernal palace. 

His fall was the signal of defeat and victory — the Swedes 
gave way — the Dutch pressed forward; the former took to 
their heels, the latter hotly pursued — some entered with 
them, pell-mell, through the sally-port — others stormed 
the bastion — and others scrambled over the curtain. 
Thus, in a little while, the impregnable fortress of Fort 
Christina, which, like another Troy, had stood a siege of 
full ten hours, was finally carried by assault, without the 
loss of a single man on either side. Victory, in the like- 
ness of a gigantic ox-fly, sat perched upon the cocked hat 
of the gallant Stuyvesant, and it was universally declared, 
by all the writers whom he hired to write the history of 
his expedition, that on this memorable day, he gained a 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 105 

sufficient quantity of glory to immortalize a dozen of the 
greatest heros in Christendom! Washington Irvine* 



i 



The advantages of a Taste for the Beauties of Nature. 

That perception of, and sensibility to beauty, which, 
when cultivated and improved, we term taste, is most 
general and uniform, with respect to those objects which 
are not liable to variation from accident, caprice, or fashion. 
The verdant lawn, the shady grove, the variegated land- 
scape, the boundless ocean, and the starry firmament, are 
contemplated with pleasure by even' beholder. But the 
emotions of different spectators, though similar in kind, 
differ widely in degree ; for, to relish with full delight the 
enchanting scenes of nature, the mind must be uncor- 
rupted by avarice, sensuality, or ambition; quick in her 
sensibilities, elevated in her sentiments, and devout in her 
affections. 

If this enthusiasm were cherished by every individual, 
in that degree which is consistent with the indispensible 
duties of his station, the felicity of human life would be 
considerably augmented. From this source the refined 
and vivid pleasures of the imagination are almost entirely 
derived. The elegant arts owe their choicest beauties to 
a taste for the contemplation of nature. Painting and 
sculpture are express imitations of visible objects: and 
where would be the charms of poetry, if divested of the 
imagery and embellishments which she borrows from rural 
scenes? Painters, statuaries, and poets, therefore, are 
always ambitious to acknowledge themselves the pupils 
of nature; and as their skill increases, they grow more 
and more delighted with every view of the animal and 
vegetable world. 

The scenes of nature contribute powerfully to inspire 
that serenity which heightens then beauties, and is neces- 
sary to our full enjoyment of them. By a secret sympathy 
the soid catches the harmony which she contemplates; 
and the frame within assimilates itself to that without. 
In this state of sweet composure, we become susceptible 
of virtuous impressions from almost every surrounding 
object. The patient ox is viewed with generous compla- 



106 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 

cency; the guileless sheep with pity; and the playful 
lamb with emotions of tenderness and love. We rejoice 
with the horse in his liberty and exemption from toil, 
while he ranges at large through enamelled pastures. We 
are charmed with the songs of birds, soothed with the buzz 
of insects, and pleased with the sportive motions of fishes, 
because these are expressions of enjoyment; and, having 
felt a common interest in the gratifications of inferior be- 
ings, we shall be no longer indifferent to their sufferings, 
or become wantonly instrumental in producing them. But 
the taste for natural beauty is subservient to higher pur- 
poses than those which have been enumerated. The cul- 
tivation of it not only refines and humanizes, but dignifies 
and exalts the affections. It elevates them to the admi- 
ration and love of that Being, who is the author of all that 
is fair, sublime, and good in the creation. Scepticism and 
irreligion are scarcely compatible with the sensibility of 
heart which arises from a just and lively relish of the wis- 
dom, harmony, and order subsisting in the world around 
us. Emotions of piety must spring up spontaneously in 
the bosom that is in union with all animated nature. 
Actuated by this beneficial and divine inspiration, man 
finds a fane in every grove; and glowing with devout 
fervor, he joins his song to the universal chorus, or muses 
the praises of the Almighty in more expressive silence. 

Dr. PercivaL 



Visit to the Field of Waterloo in 1815. 
The first visit to a field of battle, made by one totally 
unaccustomed to scenes of this description, throws him 
perhaps more out of his ordinary habits of mind, than any 
other conceivable novelty would. He is now about to see 
what it is not very likely he ever should see, — such places 
being much out of the course of the inhabitants of these 
islands at least. The great cause of excitement, however, 
lies in his being on the point of converting into a visible 
reality, what had previously existed in his mind as a 
shadowy, uncertain, but awful fancy. In this respect, it 
may rank next to leaving this world altogether, to realize 
our doubtful, but anxious ideas of the next. The shapings 
of the imagination will usually appear to have been formed 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 107 

on a scale of more prominent magnitude, and to include 
more of the external signs of the surprising, than the truth 
bears out; but there is something in unexpected simplicity 
of appearance, and an unassuming aspect, when contrasted 
with prodigious actions, and important results, which is 
perhaps, on the whole, more touching than visible " gor- 
gons or chimeras dire." In this way certainly, I was struck 
by the plain of Waterloo. No display, I think, of car- 
nage, violence, and devastation, could have so pathetic an 
effect, * as the quiet orderly look of its fields, brightened 
with the sunshine, but thickly strewed with little heaps of 
upturned earth, which no sunshine could brighten. On 
these, the eye instantly fell, — and the heart, having but a 
slight call made upon it from without, pronounced with 
more solemnity to itself, the dreadful thing that lay below, 
scarcely covered with a sprinkling of mould. On a closer 
inspection, the ravages of the battle were very apparent, — 
but neither the battered walls, splintered doors, and torn 
roofs of the farm-houses of La Haye Sainte, astounding 
as they certainly were, nor even the miserably scorched 
relics of what must have been the beautiful Hougomont, 
with its wild orchard, its parterred flower-garden, its 
gently dignified chateau, and its humble offices, now 
confounded and overthrown by a visitation, which, from 
its traces, seemed to have included every possible sort of 
destruction, — not all these harsh features of the contest 
had, to my mind at least, so direct and irresistible an ap- 
peal, as the earthy hillocks which tripped the step on cross- 
ing a hedge-row, dealing a fence, or winding along among 
the grass that overhung a secluded pathway. In some 
spots they lay in thick clusters and long ranks ; in others, 
one would present itself alone; betwixt these, a black 
scathed circle told, that fire had been employed to con- 
sume as worthless refuse, what parents cherished, friends 
esteemed, and women loved. The summer wind that 
shook the branches of the trees, and waved the clover and 
gaudy heads of the thistles, brought along with it a foul 
stench, still more hideous to the mind than to the offended 
sense. The foot that startled the small bird from its rest 
amidst the grass, disturbed at the same time, some poor 
remnant of a human being, — either a bit of his showy ha- 
biliment, in which he took pride, — or of his warlike ac- 



108 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 

coutrements, which were his glory, — or of the frame-work 
of his body itself, which he felt as comeliness and strength, 
the instant before it became a mass of senseless matter. 

John Scott. 



The Widow's Retinue. 

In giving an account of the arrival of Lady Lillycraft 
at the Hall, I ought to have mentioned the entertainment 
which I derived from witnessing the unpacking of her 
carriage, and the disposing of her retinue. There is some- 
thing extremely amusing to me in the number of factitious 
wants, the loads of imaginary conveniences, but real in- 
cumbrances, with which the luxurious are apt to burthen 
themselves. I like to watch the whimsical stir and dis- 
play about one of petty progresses. The number of ro- 
bustious footmen and retainers of all kinds bustling about 
with looks of infinite gravity and importance, to do almost 
nothing. The number of heavy trunks, and parcels, and 
band-boxes, belonging to my lady; and the solicitude ex- 
hibited about some humble, odd-looking box, by my lady's 
maid; the cushions piled in the carriage, to make a soft 
seat still softer, and to prevent the dreaded possibility of a 
jolt; the smelling-bottles, the cordials, the basket of biscuit 
and fruit; the new publications; all provided to guard 
against hunger, fatigue, or ennui; the led horses to vary 
the mode of travelling; and all this preparation and parade 
to move, perhaps, some very-good-for-nothing personage 
about a little space of earth. 

I do not mean to apply the latter part of these observa- 
tions to Lady Lillycraft, for whose simple kind-hearted- 
ness I have a very great respect, and who is really a most 
amiable and worthy being. I cannot refrain, however, 
from mentioning some of the motley retinue she has 
brought with her; and which, indeed, bespeak the over- 
flowing kindness of her nature, which requires her to be 
surrounded with objects on which to lavish it. 

In the first place, her ladyship has a pampered coach- 
man, with a red face, and cheeks that hang down like 
dew-laps. He evidently domineers over her a little, with 
respect to the fat horses; and only drives out when he 
thinks proper, and when he thinks it will be " good for 
the cattle." 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 109 

She has a favorite page to attend upon her person; a 
handsome boy of about twelve years of age, but a mis- 
chievous varlet, very much spoiled, and in a fair way to 
be a good for nothing. 

He is dressed in green, with a profusion of gold cord 
and gilt buttons about his clothes. She always has one 
or two attendants of the kind, who are replaced by others 
as soon as they grow to fourteen years of age. She has 
brought two dogs with her also, out of a number of pets 
which she maintains at home. One is a fat spaniel, called 
Zephyr — though heaven defend me from such a zephyr! 
He is fed out of shape and comfort; his eyes are nearly 
strained out of his head; he wheezes with corpulency, 
and cannot walk without great difficulty. The other is a 
little, old, gray, muzzled curmudgeon, with an unhappy 
eye, that kindles like a coal, if you only look at him ; his 
nose turns up ; his mouth is drawn into wrinkles, so as to 
show his teeth; in short, he has altogether the look of a 
dog far gone in misanthropy, and totally sick of the world. 
When he walks, he has his tail curled up so tight, that it 
seems to lift his feet from the ground; and he seldom 
makes use of more than three legs at a time, keeping the 
other drawn up as a reserve. This last wretch is called 
Beauty. 

These dogs are full of elegant ailments unknown to 
vulgar dogs; and are petted and nursed by Lady Lilly- 
craft with the tenderest kindness. They are pampered 
and fed with delicacies by their fellow minion, the page; 
but their stomachs are often weak and out of order, so 
that they cannot eat; tho I have now and then seen the 
page give them a mischievous pinch, or thwack over the 
head, when his mistress was not by. They have cushions 
for their express use, on which they lie before the fire, 
and yet are apt to shiver and moan, if there is the least 
draught of air. When any one enters the room, they make 
a most tyrannical barking that is absolutely deafening. 
They are insolent to all the other dogs of the establish- 
ment. There is a noble stag-hound, a great favorite of 
the squire's, who is a privileged visitor to the parlour; but 
the moment he makes his appearance, these intruders fly 
at him with furious rage; and I have admired the sovereign 
indifference and contempt with which he seems to look 
L 



110 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 

down upon his puny assailants. When her ladyship drives 
out, these dogs are generally carried with her to take the 
air; when they look out of each window of the carnage, 
and bark at all vulgar pedestrian dogs. These dogs are a 
continual source of misery to the household; as they are 
always in the way, they eveiy now and then get their toes 
trod on, and then there is a yelping on their part, and a 
lamentation on the part of their mistress, that fills the room 
with clamor and confusion. 

Lastly, there is her ladyship's waiting-woman, Mrs. 
Hannah, a prim, pragmatical old maid ; one of the most 
intolerable intolerant virgins that ever lived. She has 
kept her virtue by her, until it has turned sour, and now 
every word and look smacks of verjuice. She is the very 
opposite to her mistress, for one hates, and the other loves, 
all mankind. How they first came together I cannot 
imagine; but they have lived together for many years; 
and the abigail's temper being tart and encroaching, and 
her ladyship's easy and yielding, the former has got the 
complete upper hand, and tyrannizes over the good lady 
in secret. Lady Lillycraft now and then complains of it, 
in great confidence to her friends, but hushes up the sub- 
ject immediately, if Mrs. Hannah makes her appearance. 
Indeed, she has been so accustomed to be attended by 
her, that she thinks she could not do without her; tho 
one great study of her life is to keep Mrs. Hannah in good 
humour, by little presents and kindnesses. 

Master Simon has a most devout abhorrence, mingled 
with awe, for this ancient spinster. He told me the other 
day, in a whisper, that she was a cursed brimstone— in 
fact, he added another epithet, which I would not repeat 
for the world. I have remarked, however, that he is al- 
ways extremely civil to her when they meet. 

Washington Irvine. 



Character of Napoleon Bonaparte. 
Nature had no obstacles that he did not surmount — 
space no opposition that he did not spurn; and whether 
amid Alpine rocks, Arabian sands, or Polar snows, he 
seemed proof against peril, and empowered with ubiquity ! 
The whole continent of Europe trembled at beholding the 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. Ill 

audacity of his designs, and the miracles of their execu- 
tion. Scepticism bowed to the prodigies of his perform- 
ances; romance assumed the air of history; nor was there 
aught too incredible for belief, or too fanciful for explana- 
tion, when the world saw a subaltern of Corsica waving 
his imperial flag over her most ancient capitals. All the 
visions of antiquity became common-places in his contem- 
plation; kings were his people — nations were his out- 
posts; and he disposed of courts, and crowns, and camps, 
and churches, and cabinets, as if they were the titular 
dignataries of the chessboard! 

Amid all these changes, he stood immutable as ada- 
mant. It mattered little whether in the field or the draw- 
ing-room, — with the mob or the levee, — wearing the 
jacobin bonnet, or the iron crown, — banishing a Braganza, 
or espousing a Hapsburg, — dictating peace on a raft to 
the Czar of Russia, or contemplating defeat at the gallows 
of Leipsic, — he was still the same military despot ! Cradled 
in the camp, he was to the last hour the darling of the 
army; and whether in the camp or the cabinet, he never 
forsook a friend, or forgot a favor. Of all his soldiers, not 
one abandoned him till affection was useless, and their 
first stipulation was for the safety of their favorite. They 
knew well, that if he was lavish of them, he was prodigal 
of himself; and that if he exposed them to peril, he repaid 
them with plunder. 

For the soldier, he subsidized every body; to the peo- 
ple, he made even pride pay tribute. The victorious ve- 
teran glittered with his gains; and the capital, gorgeous 
with the spoils of art, became the miniature metropolis of 
the universe. In this wonderful combination, his affecta- 
tion of literature must not be omitted. The gaoler of the 
press, he affected the patronage of letters, — the proscriber 
of books, he encouraged philosophy, — the persecutor of 
authors, and the murderer of printers, he yet pretended 
to the protection of learning! — the assassin of Palin, the 
silencer of De Stael, and the denouncer of Kotzebue, he 
was the friend of David, the benefactor of De Lille, and 
sent his academic prize to the philosopher of England.* 
Such a medley of contradictions, and at the same time 

* Sir H. Davy. 



112 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 

such an individual consistency, were never united in the 
same character. A Royalist — a Republican, and an Em- 
peror — a Mahometan — a Catholic, and a patron of the 
Synagogue — a Subaltern and a Sovereign — a Traitor and 
a Tyrant — a Christian and an Infidel, — he was, through 
all his vicissitudes, the same stern, impatient, inflexible 
original, — the same mysterious incomprehensible self,- — 
the man without a model, and without a shadow. Hi» 
fall, like his life, baffled all speculation; in short, his whole 
history was like a dream to the world, and no man can 
tell how or why he was awaked from the reverie. Such 
is a faint and feeble picture of Napoleon Bonaparte. 

That he has done much evil, there is little doubt; that 
he has been the origin of much good, there is just as little. 
Through his means, intentional or not, Spain, Portugal, 
and France, have risen to the blessings of a free constitu- 
tion ; superstition has found her grave in the ruins of the 
Inquisition; and the feudal system, with its whole train 
of tyrannic satellites, has fled for ever. Kings may learn 
from him that their safest study, as well as their noblest, 
is the interest of the people; the people are taught by him 
that there is no despotism so stupendous against which 
they have not a resource; and to those who would rise 
upon the ruins of both, he is a living lesson, that if ambi- 
tion can raise them from the lowest station, it can also 
prostrate them from the highest. C Phillips* 



Every Man the Architect of his own Fortune. 

" But chiefly the mould of a man's fortune is his own hands." 

Lord Bacon. 
" Fortune a goddess is to fools alone, 
The wise are always master of their own." 

Pope. 

It is wittily remarked by a French writer, that, while 
the Portuguese sailors, before engaging in battle, are 
prostrate upon deck, imploring their saints to perform 
miracles in their favors, the British tars are manning their 
guns and working miracles for themselves. This remark, 
when rightly interpreted, contains a lively satire upon a 
species of superstition which misleads the multitude more 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 113 

than any other, and engenders indolence and apathy, under 
the specious names of contentment and resignation. There 
may be some errors, common to the vulgar, more prepos- 
terous than this, but few more pernicious, since there is 
none in which the transition from speculation to conduct 
is so easy and unavoidable. To believe, for example, that 
there once were witches, who made a cockle-shell serve 
the purpose of a ship, and substituted a broomstick for a 
balloon; or that there still are fairies, who hold their gam- 
bols at midnight, among the romantic glens of Scotland, 
is quite a harmless superstition, whose worst effect can be 
to make the gossips draw closer round the winter fire, 
or the farmer more brief in his potations when at market. 
But a blind belief in fatalism or destiny, acts as a powerful 
stimulus to indolence and indecision, and makes men sit 
down with then arms folded, in Turkish apathy, expect- 
ing to obtain, by supernatural means, what Providence 
has wisely reserved as the reward of virtuous exertions. 
It cannot, therefore, be too early or deeply instilled into 
the minds of the youthful and inexperienced, that there 
are few difficulties which wisdom and perseverance can- 
not conquer ; that the means of happiness, and even riches, 
are, in some degree, in every man's power, and that mis- 
fortune is frequently, if not generally, only another name 
for misconduct. 

Nothing is more common, in the world, than for people 
to flatter their self-esteem, and to excuse their indolence, 
by referring the prosperity of others to the caprice or par- 
tiality of fortune. Yet few, who have examined the mat* 
ter with attention, have failed to discover, that success is 
as generally a consequence of industry and good conduct, 
as disappointment is the consequence of indolence and 
indecision. Happiness, as Pope remarks, is truly our be- 
ing's end and aim, and almost every man desires wealth as 
a means of happiness. But, in wishing, mankind are nearly 
alike, and it is chiefly the striking incongruity that exists 
betwixt their actions and thoughts, that chequers society, 
and produces those endless varieties of character and sit- 
uation which prevail in human life. Some men, with the 
best intentions, have so little fortitude, and are so fond of 
present ease or pleasure, that they give way to every 
temptation; while others, possessed of greater strength of 



114 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 

mind, hold out heroically to the last, and then look back 
with complacency on the difficulties they have overcome, 
and the thousands of their fellow travellers that are lag- 
ging far behind, railing at fate, and dreaming of what they 
might have been. This difference in the progress which 
men make in life, who set out with the same prospects 
and opportunities, is a proof, of itself, that more depends 
upon conduct than fortune. And it would be good for 
man, if, instead of envying his neighbours lot and deplor- 
ing his own, he would begin to inquire what means others 
have employed that he has neglected, and whether it is 
not possible, by a change of conduct, to secure a result 
more proportioned to his wishes. Were individuals, when 
unsuccessful, often to institute such an inquiry, and im- 
prove the hints it would infallibly suggest, we would hear 
fewer complaints against the partiality of fortune, and wit- 
ness less of the wide extremes of riches and poverty. But 
the great misfortune is, that few have courage to under- 
take, and still fewer candor to execute, such a system of 
self-examination. Conscience may perhaps whisper that 
they have not done all which their circumstances permitted ; 
but his whispers are soon stifled amidst the plaudits of 
self-esteem, and they remain in a happy ignorance of the 
exertions of others, and a consoling belief in the immu- 
tability of fortune. Others who may possess candor and 
firmness to undertake this inquiry^ are quite appalled at 
the unwelcome truths it forces upon their notice. Their 
own industry, which they believed to be great, and their 
own talents, which they fancied were unequalled, are 
found to suffer by a comparison with those of others, and 
they betake themselves in despair to the refuge of indo- 
lence, and think it easier, if not better, to want wealth, 
than encounter the toil and trouble of obtaining it. Thus 
do thousands pass through life, angry with fate when they 
ought to be angry with themselves. Too fond of the com- 
forts and enjoyments which riches procure ever to be happy 
without them, and too indolent and unsteady ever to per- 
severe in the use of those means by which alone they are 
obtainable. 

Probably one frequent cause of disappointment in the 
young, may be traced to that overweening confidence in 
their own powers, which leads them to trust more to their 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 115 

own romantic anticipations, than the tried and experi- 
mental knowledge of their seniors. While the progress 
of learning, and the refinements of education, confer upon 
the present race an elegance and polish unknown to their 
fathers, they are too apt to magnify this merit, and regard 
their elders as beings of an inferior capacity. They forget 
completely, that a taste for literature and the arts differs 
widely from that sober and experimental knowledge which 
can be brought to bear upon the real business of life, and 
enable its possessor to preserve his place in that great 
crowd, where every individual is constantly endeavoring 
to press forward by jostling his neighbour. Even a man 
of very ordinary parts, who has lived long in the world, 
and probably, after a thousand blunders, learned to con- 
duct himself with ability and prudence, is better qualified 
for imparting instruction to others, than those who in 
other respects are most remarkable for their talents and 
attainments. Experience in this, as in every thing else, 
is the great mistress of wisdom, and were men guided by 
her safe, though often unwelcome counsels, in preference 
to their own fond imaginations, there would be a mighty 
diminution of that misery with which ignorance and ob- 
stinacy are constantly filling the world. There is little 
new under the sun, and the walks of life, numerous and 
diversified as they appeal', are filled both with beacons 
that warn of the fate of the imprudent, and monuments 
that record the triumphs of the successful. That so many 
fail, therefore, in a task apparently so simple and easy, can 
only be accounted for by the false confidence which men 
repose in their own powers, which disposes them to slight 
instruction, and neglect the assistance of those charts and 
descriptions which have been furnished by the industry 
of preceding travellers. 

Another circumstance that marks the danger of the 
young neglecting the counsel of the old, is that revolution, 
which experience and the progress of knowledge neces- 
sarily produces in the opinions and impressions of every 
human being. He must have little acquaintance with 
books, and less with life, who has not remarked this of 
others as well as of himself. Man is not the same being 
to-day that he was yesterday. His mind, like his body, 
is in a constant state of revolution. The discovery of a 



116 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 

new truth, or the adoption of a new opinion, often pro- 
duces a total change in his views and sentiments, and 
gives a new turn to his most ordinary actions. This he 
feels and perceives, but seldom anticipates. It is the 
great error of his life, constantly to overrate Ins present 
knowledge and attainments; and altho, at every new ad- 
dition to them, he discovers his former deficiency, he still 
secretly flatters himself that he has at last reached perfec- 
tion. Like the torrent that rushes from the mountains, 
he begins his course, filled with a thousand impurities, 
and it is not till his knowledge has passed through the 
filters of the world, that error and prejudice sink to the 
bottom, and truth assumes its native transparency. To 
this cause, we must ascribe that striking diversity of feel- 
ing and sentiment which so often prevails between the pupil 
and preceptor, and which makes the former believe that 
to adopt the opinions of the latter, were to doubt the evi- 
dence of his senses. To the cool and experienced, the 
world and its concerns have lost the master charm of nov- 
elty; and hence the young find it as difficult to enter into 
the feelings of the old, as to read with their spectacles, or 
walk upon their crutches. But they should remember, 
that these hoary advisers were once young and romantic 
like themselves, and that it is from a knowledge of the 
errors into which feelings are apt to betray us — they cau- 
tion us to be on our guard against their influence. We 
would not, however, be understood as asserting that there 
are no prejudices peculiar to age, or that the young are 
never in danger of being misled by their instructors: — 
this would be hazarding too much; and it is sufficient for 
every purpose of instruction, to affirm, that the instances 
in which the old are apt to feel biased, are precisely those 
in which the prejudices of the young run strongest in a 
contrary direction; and that, at all events, there is infi- 
nitely more danger to be apprehended from their paying 
too little than too much deference to the opinion of 
others. Macdiarmid, 



Nature. 
Whoever hath passed any length of time at the places 
of public resort, by the sea-side, must have remarked that 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 117 

there is constantly a flux and reflux of the company who 
frequent them; and that the shores have their revolutions 
and changes, as well as the element that flows along their 
sides. I often, as I pace up and down the Parade, miss 
faces I have been accustomed to meet in my daily walks, 
and am stared at by others that are totally new to me; 
nor is it a small pleasure to me, who am looking after 
Nature at every step, to observe features tinged with the 
hue of returning health, which a few weeks before I had 
seen overcast with langor; and limbs beginning to move 
with freedom, which were lately contracted by pain and 
disease. — How sweet is thy return, O Health! thou rosy 
cherub ! — my soul leaps forward to meet thee, whose true 
value thy absence can only teach us! When thou comest 
with healing on thy wings, — when every part, and nerve, 
and artery, are obedient to their office, — and when this 
complicated machine is so perfectly harmonized, that we 
perceive not that we have any part, or nerve, or artery 
belonging to us, — how sweetly is the mind then attuned 
to receive pleasures from every inlet of sense. 

God of my life, who numberest my days, teach me to 
meet with gratitude, or patience, the good, or ill, which, 
in the tide of time, shall float down with them ! — but never 
withdraw from me those native spirits which have been 
the cheering companions of my existence, and have spread 
a gilding on every thing around me, that I may continue 
to view, with rapture, the inexhaustible volume of Nature 
that is thrown open before me, on every page of which is 
charactered the impression of thy omnipotent hand ! 

As I often indulge a meditating disposition on the old 
bench upon the Fort, where I am now seated, it is a mat- 
ter of amusement to consider the immense variety that a 
short space of time produces in the same natural objects; 
every change of light, every alteration in the atmosphere, 
gives them a different appearance. I have just been con- 
templating the wide scene of waters before me, that hath 
lately been darkened by some clouds which overhang it. 
I see it emerging into new day, I perceive its green 
hue warming into purple tints. As I direct my eye as 
far as it can stretch, I view the sun, from behind a veil 
that conceals it, shooting down its rays on a limited cir- 
cumference, and brightening all the edges of the waves. 



118 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 

And now its broad orb appears in full glow, descending 
almost level with the sea — the whole western canopy is 
illuminated. It trembles a little while on the extremity 
of the horizon, and at last plunges from the sight. 

Those who may be disposed to contrast the works of 
Nature with the most boasted labors of art, will find the 
first ever new and permanent; while the latter, the instant 
they have attained their limited perfection, approach to- 
wards a slow but sure decline. The pride of a potent 
monarch may be gratified in erecting some magnificent 
temple to his god ; he may perpetuate the remembrance 
of his ancestors by superb mausoleums ; he may command 
the daring pyramid to shoot upward to the skies — may 
inscribe his victories on the trophied column, or register 
his triumphs on the sculptured arch! but even tho no ac- 
cident should abridge their duration, yet the revolving 
seasons soon sully their beauty; and the silent power of 
Time gradually shakes their foundations, and at last levels 
them with the dust — -while thy works, O Nature, remain 
uninjured, ever changing and ever reviving; thou shinest 
unconscious of decay — still bright in immortal youth! 
And yet more lovely far dost thou appear, when thou 
commandest our attention in thy active scenes, and beam- 
est from the mind with all those irradiations of virtue, 
honor, and benevolence, which dignify humanity. These 
may be deemed the sunshine of the moral world, that 
warms, that brings forward, and ripens the soul to perfec- 
tion. And if sometimes, in contemplating the pictures of 
real life, one sees with pain the canvass darkened with 
worthless characters, they should be viewed but as deep 
shades, which, however they may interrupt thy native 
brightness, yet by their contrast more forcibly impress the 
amiableness of thy lustre. Keate. 



The Death ofAltamont. — By Dr. Young ^ who was 
present at the Melancholy Scene, 

The sad evening before the death of the noble youth, 
whose last hours suggested the most solemn and awful 
reflections, I was with him. No one was present but his 
physician, and an intimate whom he loved, and whom he 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 119 

had ruined. At my coming in, he said, " You and the 
physician are come too late. I have neither life nor hope. 
You both aim at miracles. You would raise the dead!" 
Heaven, I said, was merciful — " Or," exclaimed he, " I 
could not have been thus guilty. What has it not done to 
bless, and to save me ! I have been too strong for Om- 
nipotence! I have plucked down ruin." — I said, the 
blessed Redeemer. — " Hold! hold! you wound me! That 
is the rock on which I split: — I denied his name!" 

Refusing to hear any tiling from me, or take any thing 
from the physician, he lay silent, as far as sudden darts of 
pain would permit, till the clock struck: Then with ve- 
hemence he exclaimed, " Oh! time! — time! is it fit thou 
shouldst thus strike thy murderer to the heart ! How art 
thou fled for ever! — A month! — Oh, for a single week!— 
I ask not for years ! tho an age were too little for the much 
I have to do." On my saying, we could not do too much: 
that heaven was a blessed place — " So much the worse — 
'Tis lost! 'tis lost! — Heaven is to me the severest part of 
hell!" Soon after, I proposed prayer. — " Pray you that 
can. — I never prayed. — I cannot pray — nor need I. Is 
not heaven on my side already? It closes with my con- 
science. Its severest strokes but second my own." Ob- 
serving that his friend was much troubled at this, even 
to tears, — (who could forbear-? I could not) — with a most 
affectionate look, he said, " Keep those tears for thyself. 
I have undone thee. — Dost thou weep for me? That is 
cruel. What can pain me more?" 

Here his friend, too much affected, would have left 
him — " No, stay — thou still mayest hope ; therefore hear 
me. How madly have I talked ! How madly hast thou 
listened, and believed! but look on my present state as a 
full answer to thee and to myself. Tins body is all weak- 
ness and pain ; but my soul, as if strung up by torment to 
greater strength and spirit, is full powerful to reason; full 
mighty to suffer — and that which thus triumphs within 
the jaws of immortality, is doubtless immortal. — And, as 
for a Deity, nothing less than an Almighty could inflict 
what I feel." 

I was about to congratulate this passive, involuntary 
confessor, on his asserting the two prime articles of his 
creed, extorted by the rack of nature, when he thus very 



120 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS, 

passionately exclaimed: — " No, no! let me speak on. I* 
have not long to speak. — My much- injured friend, my 
soul, as my hody, lies in ruins; in scattered fragments of 
broken thought. — Remorse for the past throws my thought 
on the future. — Worse dread of the future strikes it back 
on the past. I turn, and turn, and find no ray. Didst 
thou feel half the mountain that is on me, thou wouldst 
struggle with the martyr for his stake, and bless heaven 
for the flames ! — that is not an everlasting flame ; that is 
not an unquenchable fire." 

How were we struck! yet soon after, still more. With 
what an eye of distraction, what a face of despair, he cried 
out! " My principles have poisoned my friends; my ex- 
travagance has beggared my boy! myunkindness has mur- 
dered my wife! — And is there another hell? Oh, thou 
blasphemed, yet indulgent Lord God! Hell itself is a 
refuge, if it hide me from thy frowns!" Soon after, his 
understanding failed. His terrified imagination uttered 
horrors not to be repeated, or ever forgotten. And ere 
the sun (which, I hope, has seen few like him) arose, the 
gay, young, noble, ingenious, accomplished, and most 
wretched Altamont, expired! 

If this is a man of pleasure; what is a man of pain? 
How quick, how total, is the transit of such persons ! In 
what a dismal gloom they set for ever! How short, alas! 
the day of their rejoicing! — For a moment they glitter — 
they dazzle! In a moment, where are they? Oblivion 
covers their memories! Ah! would it did! Infamy 
snatches them from oblivion. In the long-living annals of 
infamy, their triumphs are recorded. Thy sufferings, poor 
Altamont! still bleed in the bosom of the heart-stricken 
friend — for Altamont had a Mend. He might have had 
many. His transient morning might have been the dawn 
of an immortal day. His name might have been glori- 
ously enrolled in the annals of eternity. His memory 
might have left a sweet fragrance behind it, grateful to 
the surviving friend, salutary to the succeeding generation. 
With what capacity was he endowed ! with what advan- 
tages, for being greatly good ! But with the talents of an 
angel, a man may be a fool. If he judges amiss in the 
supreme point, judging right in all else but aggravate his 
folly; as it shows him wrong, tho blessed with the best 
capacity of being right. Dr. Young. 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 121 



The Female Character. 

In the portraiture of deep and tragic passion men may 
possibly excel women; and surely it is a fact, and no fancy, 
that women understand better, and pencil out more grace- 
fully, those finer and more fugitive impressions which come 
under the description of sentiment. Even the country- 
men of Rousseau are apt to recommend some of their fair 
writers, as the best models of the sentimental style. They 
find in them more truth, nature, gentleness ; less of exag- 
geration and mannerism, sensibilities less morbid, and lan- 
guage refined without bordering, on effeminacy. 

It would be a very interesting inquiry, whether this 
power of susceptibility in the female mind, a power made 
up as we have mentioned it to be, is original, or formed 
by circumstances? We certainly do believe it to be in a 
great measure original; and yet there are many things in 
the situation of women, in the .ground in which they oc- 
cupy in society, that seem to assist nature in the produc- 
tion of the effect described. Their conscious inferiority of 
personal strength, must, of itself, dispose them to a cul- 
tivation of the finer and lovelier feelings ; and this disposi- 
tion is much aided by exemption from those employments 
which hackney the minds of the other sex, and have a 
tendency to wear down all the minuter feelings. In con- 
sequence, too, of their domestic life, that reciprocation of 
social kindness, which is only a recreation to men, is to 
women, in some sense, a business. It is their field duty, 
from which, household cares are their repose. Men do not 
seek the intercourse of society as a friend to be cultivated, 
but merely throw themselves on its bosom to sleep. Wo- 
men, on the contrary, resort to it with recollections un- 
distracted, and curiosity all alive. Thus, that which we 
enjoy and forget, keeps their attention and their feelings 
in constant play, and gradually matures their perceptions 
into instinct. 

To similar causes the softer sex owe their exquisite 
acquaintance with life and manners; their fine discern- 
ment of those smaller peculiarities of character which 
throw so much light and shade over the surface of ordinary 
society. Of the deeper varieties of the mind they know 
little, because they have not been accustomed to watch 

M 



122 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 

its movements when agitated by the vexing disquietudes 
of business, or ploughed up into frightful inequalities by 
the tempests of public life. It is human nature in a calm, or 
ruffled only into gentle undulation; it is the light restless- 
ness of the domestic and the social passions ; it is the fire- 
side character of mankind, which forms their chief study, 
and with which, of course, they are perfectly intimate. 

Consider also that class of domestic occupations which 
concerns the care of children. Peace be to those wretched 
votaries of dissipation, if indeed they can find peace, who, 
all selfishness, resign their offspring to fortune, apparently 
not as pledges, but as presents. Of these we say nothing; 
but with respect to the majority of the middling class, 
there can be no question that, either as mothers, or as 
elder sisters, the female sex are infinitely more conversant 
with children than the other. Trace the effects naturally 
produced on their minds by this sort of society — for surely 
it may be honored with that appellation — what habits of 
quick and intelligent observation must be formed by the 
employment of watching over interesting helplessness, 
and construing ill-explained wants! How must the per- 
petual contemplation of unsophisticated nature, reflect back 
on the dispositions of the observer a kind of simplicity and 
ingenuousness! What an insight into the native constitu- 
tion of the human mind must it give, to inspect it in the very 
act of concoction? It is as if a chemist should examine 

" Young diamonds in their infant dew." 
Not that mothers will be apt to indulge in delusive dreams 
of the perfection of human nature and human society. 
They see too much of the waywardness of infants, to 
imagine them perfect. They neither find them nor think 
them angels, tho they often call them so. But whatever 
is bad or good in them, they behold untrammelled and 
undisguised. All this must, in some degree, contribute 
to form those peculiarities in the female character, of which 
we are attempting to follow out the natural history. 

The same peculiarities may, in part perhaps, be traced 
up to the system of European manners, which allows to 
women a free association with the world, while it enjoins 
on them the condition of an unimpeachable strictness of 
conduct. However loosely the fulfilment of this condi- 
tion may be exacted in some countries of Europe, the 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 123 

system is still pretty extensively acted upon; and it doubt- 
less tends to produce in the sex a habit of circumspection, 
an alarmed sense of self-respect, and a scrupulous tender- 
ness of that feeling-, winch is to conscience what decorum 
is to virtue. But these qualities seem to be intimately 
allied to delicacy of perception and of mind. In fact, in 
the western world, bienseance has become (if we may use 
a very hard and workmanlike -term) the professional virtue 
of the fair, and it is therefore that they excel in it. On 
the whole, if it should be asked, why women are more re- 
fined than men? it may be asked in return, why civilized 
men are more refined than barbarians? It is society which 
has polished the savage. It is the task of presiding over 
the society of society, the more civilized part of civilized 
life, which has so highly polished, and thrown so fine a 
finish over women. Edinburgh Review* 



American in England. 

England is as classic ground to an American as Italy is 
to an Englishman; and old London teems with as much 
historical association as mighty Rome. Indeed, it is dif- 
ficult to describe the whimsical medley of ideas that throng 
upon Ins mind on landing among" English scenes. He, for 
the first time, sees a world about which he has been read- 
ing and thinking in every stage of his existence. The 
recollected ideas of infancy, youth, and manhood; of the 
nursery, the school, and the study, come swarming at 
once upon him: and his attention is distracted between 
great and little objects; each of which, perhaps, awakens 
an equally delightful train of remembrances. 

But what more especially attracts his notice, are those 
peculiarities which (nstinsruish an old country and an old 
state of society from a new one. I have never yet grown 
familiar enough with the crumbling monuments of past 
ages, to blunt the intense interest with which I at first 
beheld them. Accustomed always to scenes where his- 
tory was, in a manner, in anticipation ; where every thing 
in art was new and progressive, and pointed to the future 
rather than the past ; where, in short, the works of man 
gave no ideas but those of young existence, and prospective 



124 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 

improvement ; there was something inexpressibly touching 
in the sight of enormous piles of architecture, grey with 
antiquity, and sinking to decay. I cannot describe the 
mute but deepfelt enthusiasm with which I have contem- 
plated a vast monastic ruin, like Tintern Abbey, buried 
in the bosom of a quiet valley, and shut up from the world, 
as tho it had existed merely for itself; or a warrior pile, 
like Conway Castle, standing in stern loneliness on its 
rocky height, a mere hollow yet threatening phantom of 
departed power. They spread a grand, and melancholy, 
and, to me, an unusual charm over the landscape; I, for 
the first time, beheld signs of national old age, and em- 
pire's decay, and proofs of the transient and perishing 
glories of art, amidst the ever-springing and reviving fer- 
tility and nature. But, in fact, to me every thing was full 
of matter; the footsteps of history were every where to be 
traced; and poetry had breathed over and sanctified the 
land. I experienced the delightful freshness of feeling of a 
child, to whom every thing is new. I pictured to myself 
a set of inhabitants and a mode of life for eveiy habitation 
that I saw, from the aristocratical mansion, amidst the 
lordly repose of stately groves and solitary parks, to the 
straw-thatched cottage, with its scanty garden and its 
cherished woodbine. I thought I never could be sated 
with the sweetness and freshness of a country so com- 
pletely carpeted with verdure; where every air breathed 
of the balmy pasture, and the honeysuckled hedge, I was 
continually conning upon some little document of poetry 
in the blossomed hawthorn, the daisy, the cowslip, the 
primrose, or some other simple object that has received a 
supernatural value from the muse. The first time that I 
heard the song of the nightingale, I was intoxicated more 
by the delicious crowd of remembered associations, than 
by the melody of its notes; and I shall never forget the 
thrill of ecstasy with which I first saw the lark rise, al- 
most from beneath my feet, and wing its musical flight up 
into the morning sky. Washington Irvine. 

Reflections on the Battle of Waterloo, in 1815. 
It is the finest feature of the victory of Waterloo, tlrat 
the future security of Europe is now advanced incalcula- 
bly from where it was left last year by the combinations 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 125 

of Leipsic. If a single power has withstood the utmost 
efforts of France, that power itself will in future go far to 
keep her in check. To none of the powers was it of more 
real consequence that this fortune should fall, than to 
Great Britain, the nearest and most active neighbour of 
France. The blood which it has cost, — blood which has 
not sunk into the barren sand, — might have been poured 
out less profusely had the Prussian army come up in the 
morning, rather than in the evening; but the moral effect 
on mens estimates of the result, and especially on the 
French themselves, would have been immeasurably less 
favorable to the future equilibrium, and consequent peace 
of Europe. Moral reflections on the grand interposition 
of Waterloo, are for ever conflicting in the mind, and in- 
juring its power of discriminate and satisfactory considera- 
tion. The thought by far the most prominent, is the speed 
of the course which has been run, — " the fell swoop," 
which in an instant, like the judgments of Heaven when 
punishing by miracle, has made such an enemy to vanish, 
and wrought such a change in the face of human affairs. 
What has been effected? A few short days before, Eu- 
rope entire was dazzled with the spectacle of the throne 
of Napoleon Bonaparte again erected, as if by enchant- 
ment, more towering than ever, the ascent crowded with 
the princes of his dynasty, and captains of his host ; that 
host in countless numbers, encircling its chief, enthusiastic 
in his cause to desperation and frenzy, and conducting the 
electrical ardor to sympathising, applauding, undoubting 
millions around; armies on armies rolling on to the scene; 
and oaths and shouts from a people, whose power had often 
shaken Europe to its extremes, astounding the world, and 
making the stoutest heart to fear for the issue of the con- 
flict about to be renewed. 

A few moments before, and language had no terms of 
sufficient confidence, defiance, and vengeance. " We 
shall not soon hear again of the Prussians; and as for the 
English, we shall now see what will become of them. 
The Emperor is here." 

Where is the Emperor now! Where is his mighty 
army! Where is the beautiful, the invincible, the sacred 
France! Never was there so short a time between the 
highest presumption and the lowest prostration; between 



126 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 

an attitude which was the terror, and a humiliation which 
is the byeword of nations. It is no vain glory when Eng- 
land, who dealt a blow, exults; as would have been the 
shout of France, had the victory been hers. It is no tri- 
umph over an unfortunate and virtuous people. England 
rejoices because sound principle is vindicated, and the 
times restored when justice has again some chance of 
making her voice heard in the world. 

Last of all, has England, with one blow, launched from 
his pinnacle, the almost deified captain of the long invin- 
cible soldiery of France ; and forced him, with a scrap of 
sentiment about Themistocles in his mouth, to bow his 
head to her grandeur, and mendicate his life from her 
mercy! No part of the denouement of the wondrous 
drama has more astonished the French people, and exalted 
England in their eyes, than that charm of hers, that spell 
of her power, which has drawn the god of their senses and 
imaginations, their Emperor, by something like superna- 
tural fascination and fatality, absolutely into her own 
hands, to fix his destiny for ever. 

Had all been reversed, — had France overwhelmed 
England, language is in vain searched for a term to qua- 
lify the injury such a melancholy event would have pro- 
duced to the great cause of humanity. The thought 
cannot be endured for a moment! — the victory of France 
over England !— the triumph once more, and the reign for 
generations, of profligacy and cruelty, gilded over by fine 
sentiment, arrayed in the words, without a meaning, of 
most exalted virtue ; while honor and principle, driven to 
a doubtful, at least permanent struggle, for their own ex- 
istence, were losing rank and estimation every hour among 
mankind! No interposition of the god of battles could 
have bestowed such a gift on humanity, as the reunion of 
power with right; the heart-reviving combination of real 
military and national glory, with the less ostentatious, but 
more substantial virtues, which morals and religion re- 
commend; and which have shown that they can neither 
be talked, nor laughed, nor fought out of fashion ; — a com- 
bination from which France herself, as most she needs, will 
yet most benefit, when the ruffian violence, the knavery, 
and the pretensions of her Revolution, are remembered 
only as a dreadful -warning to mankind. Simpson. 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 127 

Contrast between the Duke of Bedford and Mr, Burke. 
% % % From Burkes Letters to a Noble Lord, on 
the attacks made on him in the House of Lords, by the 
Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Lauderdale. 
I was not, like his Grace .of Bedford, swaddled, and 
rocked, and dandled, into a Legislator: " Nitor in ad' 
versum" is the motto for a man like me. I possessed not 
one of the qualities, nor cultivated one of the arts that 
recommend men to the favor and protection of the great* 
I was not made for a minion or a tool. As little did I 
follow the trade of winning the hearts, by imposing on the 
understandings of the people. At every step of my pro- 
gress in life (for in every step I was traversed and op- 
posed), and at every turnpike I met, I was obliged to 
show my passport, and again and again to prove my sole 
title to the honor of being useful to my country, by a proof 
that I was not wholly unacquainted with its laws, and the 
whole system of its interest both abroad and at home. 
Otherwise no rank, no toleration even for me. I had no 
arts, but manly arts. On them I have stood, and please 
God, in spite of the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of 
Lauderdale, to the last gasp will I stand. 

I know not how it has happened, but it really seems, 
that, whilst his Grace was meditating his well-considered 
censure upon me, he fell into a sort of sleep. Homer 
nods; and the Duke of Bedford may dream; and as 
dreams (even his golden dreams) are apt to be ill-pieced 
and incongruously put together, his Grace preserved his 
idea of reproach to me, but took the subject-matter from 
the crown-grants to his own family. This is " the stuff 
of which his dreams are made." In that way of putting 
things together, his Grace is perfectly in the right. The 
grants to the house of Russel were so enormous, as not 
only to outrage economy, but even to stagger credibility. 
The Duke of Bedford is the leviathan among all the 
creatures of the crown. He tumbles about his unwieldy 
bulk; he plays and frolics in the ocean of the royal bounty. 
Huge as he is, and whilst " he lies floating many a rood/' 
he is still a creature. His ribs, his fins, his whalebone, 
his blubber, the very spiracles through which he spouts a 
torrent of brine against his origin, and covers me all over 



128 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 

with the spray, — every thing of him and about him is 
from the throne. — Is it for him to question the dispensa- 
tion of royal favor? 

I really am at a loss to draw any sort of parallel between 
the public merits of his Grace, by which he justifies the 
grants he holds, and these services of mine, on the favor- 
able construction of which I have obtained, what his Grace 
so much disapproves. In private life I have not at all the 
honor of acquaintance with the noble Duke. But I ought 
to presume, and it costs me nothing to do so, that he 
abundantly deserves the esteem and love of all who live 
with him. But as to public service, why truly it would 
not be more ridiculous for me to compare myself in rank, 
in fortune, in splendid descent, in youth, strength, or figure, 
with the Duke of Bedford, than to make a parallel between 
his services, and my attempts to be useful to my country. — - 
It would not be gross adulation, but uncivil irony, to say, 
that he has any public merit of his own, to keep alive the 
idea of the services by which his vast landed pensions 
were obtained. My merits, whatever they are, are ori- 
ginal and personal; his are derivative. It is his ancestor, 
the original pensioner, that has laid up this inexhaustible 
fund of merit, which makes his Grace so very delicate 
and exceptious about the merit of all other grantees of the 
crown. Had he permitted me to remain quiet, I should 
have said, — 'tis his estate; that's enough. It is his by law; 
what have I do with it or its history? He would natur- 
ally have said, on his side, " 'tis this man's fortune. — He 
is as good now, as my ancestor was two hundred and fifty 
years ago. I am a young man with very old pensions; 
he is an old man with very young pensions, — that's all." 

JBurke. 



The Attempted Assassination of the Queen of France, 

in 1789. 
History will record, that on the morning of the 6th of 
October, 1789, the King and Queen of France, after a 
day of confusion, alarm, dismay, and slaughter, lay down, 
under the pledged security of public faith, to indulge na- 
ture in a few hours of respite and troubled melancholy 
repose. From this sleep, the Queen was first startled by 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 129 

the voice of the sentinel at her door, who cried out to her, 
to save herself by flight — that this was the last proof of 
fidelity he could give — that they were upon him, and he 
was dead. Instantly he was cut down. A band of cruel 
ruffians and assassins, reeking with his blood, rushed into 
the chamber of the Queen, and pierced with a hundred 
strokes of bayonets and poniards the bed, from whence 
this persecuted woman had but just time to fly, almost 
naked, and, through ways unknown to the murderers, had 
escaped to seek refuge at the feet of a king and husband, 
not secure of his own life for a moment. 

The King, to say no more of him, and this Queen, and 
their infant children (who once would have been the pride 
and hope of a great and generous people), were then forced 
to abandon the sanctuary of the most splendid palace in 
the world, which they left swimming in blood, polluted 
by massacre, and strewed with scattered limbs and muti- 
lated carcases. Thence they were conducted into the 
capital of their kingdom. Two had been selected from 
the unprovoked, unresisted, promiscuous slaughter, which 
was made of the gentlemen of birth and family who com- 
posed the King's body-guard. These two gentlemen, 
with all the parade of an execution of justice, were cruelly 
and publicly dragged to the block, and beheaded in the 
great court of the palace. Their heads were stuck upon 
spears, and led the procession; whilst the royal captives, 
who followed in the train, were slowly moved along, a- 
midst the horrid yells, and shrilling screams, and frantic 
dances, and infamous contumelies, and all the unutterable 
abominations of the furies of hell, in the abused shape of 
the vilest of women. After they had been made to taste, 
drop by drop, more than the bitterness of death, in the 
slow torture of a journey of twelve miles, protracted to 
six hours, they were, under a guard, composed of those 
very soldiers who had thus conducted them through this 
famous triumph, lodged in one of the old palaces of Paris, 
now converted into a Bastile for kings. ***** 
I hear, and I rejoice to hear, that the great lady, the other 
object of the triumph, has borne that day (one is inter- 
ested that beings made for suffering should suffer well), 
and that she bears all the succeeding days, that she bears 
the imprisonment of her husband, and her own captivity, 



130 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS, 

and the exile of her friends, and the insulting adulation 
of addresses, and the whole weight of her accumulated 
wrongs, with a serene patience, in a manner suited to 
her rank and race, and becoming the offspring of a sove- 
reign, distinguished for her piety and her courage ; that, 
like her, she has lofty sentiments ; that she feels with the 
dignity of a Roman matron; that in the last extremity, 
she will save herself from the last disgrace; and that, if 
she must fall, she will fall by no ignoble hand. 

It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the 
Queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles ; and 
surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed 
to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above 
the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere 
she just began to move in, — glittering like the morning 
star, full of life, and splendor, and joy. Oh! what a re- 
volution! and what a heart must I have to contemplate, 
without emotion, that elevation and that fall! Little did 
I dream when she added titles of veneration to those of 
enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that she should ever 
be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace, 
concealed in that bosom ; little did I dream that I should 
have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation 
of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cava- 
liers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped 
from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened 
her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. That 
of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded; 
and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever. Never, 
never more, shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank 
and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, 
that subordination of the heart, which kept alive even in 
servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. The 
unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the 
nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise is gone ! 
It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of 
honor, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired 
courage whilst it mitigated ferocity; which ennobled 
whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half 
its evil by losing all its grossness. 
jte Burke. 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 131 



On Innovation. 
It cannot at this time be too often repeated, line upon 
line, precept upon precept, until it come into the currency 
of a proverb, to innovate, is not to reform. The French 
revolutionists complained of every thing; they refused to 
reform any thing; and they left nothing, no, nothing at all 
unchanged. The consequences are before us, — not in re- 
mote history; not in future prognostication; they are about 
us; they are upon us. They shake the public security; 
they menace private enjoyment; they dwarf the growth 
of the young; they break the quiet of the old. If we 
travel, they stop our way. They infest us in town; they 
pursue us to the country. Our business is interrupted ; 
our repose is troubled; our pleasures are saddened; our 
very studies are poisoned and perverted, and knowledge 
is rendered worse than ignorance, by the enormous evils 
of this dreadful innovation. The revolution harpies of 
France, sprung from night and hell, or from that chaotic 
anarchy, which generates equivocally " all monstrous, all 
prodigious things," cuckoo-like, adulterously lay their eggs, 
and brood over, and hatch them in the nest of every neigh- 
bouring state. These obscene harpies, who deck them- 
selves in, I know not what divine attributes, but who in 
reality are foul and ravenous birds of prey (both mothers 
and daughters), flutter over our heads, and souse down 
upon our tables, and leave nothing unrent, unrifled, un- 
ravaged, or unpolluted with the slime of their filthy offal. 

Burke. 



Burkes Account of his Son. 
Had it pleased God to continue to me the hopes of 
succession, I should have been, according to my medio- 
crity, and the mediocrity of the age I live in, a sort of 
founder of a family; I should have left a son, who, in all 
the points in which personal merit can be viewed, in 
science, in erudition, in genius, in taste, in honor, in ge- 
nerosity, in humanity, in every liberal sentiment, and 
every liberal accomplishment, would not have shown 
himself inferior to the Duke of Bedford, or to any of 
those whom he traces in his line. His Grace very soon 



132 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 

would have wanted all plausibility in his attack upon that 
provision which belonged more to mine than to me. He 
would soon have supplied every deficiency, and symme- 
trized every proportion. It would not have been for that 
successor to resort to any stagnant wasting reservoir of 
merit in me, or in any ancestry. He had in himself a salient, 
living spring, of generous and manly action. Every day 
he lived, he would have repurchased the bounty of the 
crown, and ten times more, if ten times more he had re- 
ceived. He was made a public creature, and had no en- 
joyment whatever, but in the performance of some duty. 
At this exigent moment, the loss of a finished man is not 
easily supplied. 

But a Disposer, whose power we are little able to re- 
sist, and whose wisdom it behoves us not at all to dispute, 
has ordained it in another manner, and (whatever my 
querulous weakness might suggest) a far better. The 
storm has gone over me; and I lie like one of those old 
oaks, which the late hurricane has scattered about me. I 
am stripped of all my honors : I am torn up by the roots, 
and lie prostrate on the earth ! There, and prostrate there, 
I most unfeignedly recognize the divine justice, and in 
some degree submit to it. But whilst I humble myself 
before God, I do not know that it is forbidden to repel 
the attacks of unjust and inconsiderate men. The patience 
of Job is proverbial. After some of the convulsive strug- 
gles of our irritable nature, he submitted himself, and re- 
pented in dust and ashes. But even so, I do not find 
him blamed for reprehending, and with a considerable 
degree of verbal asperity, those ill-natured neighbours of 
his, who visited his dunghill to read moral, political, and 
economical lectures on his misery. I am alone. I have 
none to meet my enemies in the gate. Indeed, my Lord, 
I greatly deceive myself, if in this hard season I would 
give a peck of refuse wheat for all that is called fame and 
honor in the world. This is the appetite but of a few. 
It is a luxury; it is a privilege; it is an indulgence for 
those who are at their ease. But we are all of us made 
to shun disgrace, as we are made to shrink from pain, and 
poverty, and disease. It is an instinct; and under the 
direction of reason, instinct is always in the right. I live 
in an inverted order. They who ought to have succeeded 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 133 

me, are gone before me. They who should have been to 
me as posterity, are in the place of ancestors. I owe to 
the dearest relation (which ever must subsist in memoiy) 
that act of piety, which he would have performed to me; 
I owe it to him to show, that he was not descended, as 
the Duke of Bedford would have it, from an unworthy 
parent. Burke. 



The Voyage. 
I said that at sea all is vacancy; I should correct the 
expression. To one given to day-dreaming, and fond of 
losing himself in reveries, a sea voyage is full of subjects 
for meditation; but then they are the wonders^f the deep, 
and of the air, and rather tend to abstract the mind from 
worldly themes. I delighted to loll over the quarter rail- 
ing, or climb to the main-top, of a calm day, and muse 
for hours together on the tranquil bosom of a summers 
sea; — to gaze upon the piles of golden clouds just peering 
above the horizon, fancy them some fairy realms, and 
people them with a creation of my own; — to watch the 
gentle undulating billows, rolling their silver volumes, as 
if to die away on those happy shores. 

There was a delicious sensation of mingled security and 
awe with which I looked down, from my giddy height, 
on the monsters of the deep at their uncouth gambols. 
Shoals of porpoises tumbling about the bow of the ship; 
the grampus slowly heaving his huge form above the sur- 
face ; or the ravenous shark, darting, like a spectre, through 
the blue waters. My imagination would conjure up all 
that I heard or read of the watery world beneath me; of 
the finny herds that roam its fathomless valleys; of the 
shapeless monsters tbat lurk among the very foundations 
of the earth ; and of those wild phantasms that swell the 
tales of fishermen and sailors. 

Sometimes a distant sail, gliding along the edge of the 
ocean, would be another theme of idle speculation. How 
interesting this fragment of a world, hastening to rejoin 
the great mass of existence. What a glorious monument 
of human invention! that has thus triumphed over wind 
and wave; has brought the ends of the world into com- 
munion; has established an interchange of blessings, pour- 



134 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 

ing into the sterile regions of the north all the luxuries of 
the south; has diffused the light of knowledge and the 
charities of cultivated life; and has thus bound together 
those scattered portions of the human race, between which 
nature seemed to have thrown an insurmountable barrier. 

We one day descried some shapeless object drifting at 
a distance. At sea, every thing that breaks the monotony 
of the suiTOunding expanse attracts attention. It proved 
to be the mast of a ship that must have been completely 
wrecked; for there were the remains of handkerchiefs, by 
which some of the crew had fastened themselves to this 
spar, to prevent their being washed off by the waves. 
There was no trace by which the name of the ship could 
be ascertained. The wreck had evidently drifted about 
for many months ; clusters of shell-fish had fastened about 
it, and long sea-weeds flaunted at its sides. But where, 
thought I, is the crew? Their struggle has long been 
over — they have gone down amidst the roar of the tem- 
pest— -their bones lie whitening among the caverns of the 
deep. Silence — oblivion, like the waves, have closed over 
them, and no one can tell the story of their end. What 
sighs have been wafted after that ship; what prayers of- 
fered up at the deserted fireside of home ! How often has 
the mistress, the wife, the mother, pored over the daily 
news, to catch some casual intelligence of this rover of 
the deep. How has expectation darkened into anxiety — 
anxiety into dread — and dread into despair! Alas! not 
one momento shall ever return for love to cherish. All 
that shall ever be known, is, that she sailed from her port, 
" and was never heard of more!" 

In the evening, the weather, which had hitherto been 
fair, began to look wild and threatening, and gave indica- 
tions of one of those sudden storms that will sometimes 
break in upon the serenity of a summer voyage. The 
storm increased with the night. The sea was lashed into 
tremendous confusion. There was a fearful, sullen sound 
of rushing waves, and broken surges. Deep called unto 
deep. At times the black volume of clouds over head 
seemed rent asunder by flashes of lightning that quivered 
along the foaming billows, and made the succeeding dark- 
ness doubly terrible. The thunders bellowed over the wild 
waste of waters, and were echoed and prolonged by the 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 135 

mountain waves. As I saw the ship staggering and plung- 
ing among these roaring caverns, it seemed miraculous 
that she regained her balance, or preserved her buoyancy. 
Her yards would dip into the water: her bow was almost 
buried beneath the waves. Sometimes an impending surge 
appeared ready to overwhelm her, and nothing but a dex- 
terous movement of the helm preserved her from the 
shock. 

When I retired to my cabin the awful scene still fol- 
lowed me. The whistling of the wind through the rigging 
sounded like funereal waitings. The creaking of the masts, 
the straining and groaning of bulk heads, as the ship la- 
bored in the weltering sea, were frightful. As I heard the 
waves rushing along the side of the ship, and roaring in 
my very ear, it seemed as if Death were raging round this 
floating prison, seeking for his prey: the mere starting of 
a nail, the yawning of a seam might give him entrance. 

A fine day, however, with a tranquil sea and favoring 
breeze, soon put all these dismal reflections to flight. It 
is impossible to resist the gladdening influence of fine 
weather and fair wind at sea. When the ship is decked 
out in all her canvass, every sail swelled, and careering 
gaily over the curling waves, how lofty, how gallant she 
appears — how she seems to lord it over the deep ! I might 
fill a volume with the reveries of a sea voyage, for with 
me it is almost a continual reverie — but it is time to get 
to shore. Washington Irvine. 






PATHETIC EXTRACTS. 



Rural Funerals. 
The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which 
we refuse to be divorced. Every other wound we seek 
to heal — every other affliction to forget; but this wound 
we consider it a duty to keep open — this affliction we 
cherish and brood over in solitude. Where is the mother 
who would willingly forget the infant that perished like 
a blossom from her arms, tho every recollection is a pang? 
Where is the child that would willingly forget the most 
tender of parents, tho to remember be but to lament? 
Who, even in the hour of agony, would forget the friend 
over whom he mourns? Who, even when the tomb is 
closing upon the remains of her he most loved ; when he 
feels his heart, as it were, crushed in the closing of its 
portal; would accept of consolation that must be bought 
by forgetfulness? — No, the love which survives the tomb 
is one of the noblest attributes of the soul. If it has its 
woes, it has likewise its delights; and when the over- 
whelming burst of grief is calmed into the gentle tear of 
recollection; when the sudden anguish and the convulsive 
agony over the present ruins of all that we most loved, is 
softened away into pensive meditation on all that it was 
in the days of its loveliness — who would root out such a 
sorrow from the heart? Tho it may sometimes throw a 
passing cloud over the bright hour of gayety; or spread a 
deeper sadness over the hour of gloom; yet who would 
exchange it, even for a song of pleasure, or the burst of 
revelry? No, there is a voice from the tomb sweeter than 
song. There is a remembrance of the dead to which we 
turn even from the charms of the living. Oh the grave ! — 
the grave! — It buries every error — covers every defect — 
extinguishes every resentment? From its peaceful bosom 
spring none but fond regrets and tender recollections. 
Who can look down upon the grave even of an enemy, i 



PATHETIC EXTRACTS. 137 

and not feel a compunctious throb, that he should ever 
have warred with the poor handful of earth that lies 
mouldering before him! 

But the grave of those we loved — what a place for me- 
ditation! There it is that we call up in long review the 
whole history of virtue and gentleness, and the thousand 
endearments lavished upon us almost unheeded in the 
daily intercourse of intimacy — there it is that we dwell 
upon the tenderness ; the solemn, awful tenderness of the 
parting scene. The bed of death, with all its stifled 
griefs — its noiseless attendance — its mute, watchful as- 
siduities. The last testimonies of expiring love! The 
feeble, fluttering, thrilling — oh! how thrilling! — pressure 
of the hand. The last fond look of the glazing eye, turn- 
ing upon us even from the threshold of existence! The 
faint, faltering accents, struggling in death to give one 
more assurance of affection ! 

Aye ! go to the grave of buried love, and meditate ! There 
settle the account with thy conscience for every past be- 
nefit unrequited — every past endearment unregarded, of 
that departed being, who can never — never — never return 
to be soothed by thy contrition! 

If thou art a child, and hast ever added a sorrow to the 
soul, or a furrow to the silvered brow of an affectionate 
parent — if thou art a husband, and hast ever caused the 
fond bosom that ventured its whole happiness in thy arms, 
to doubt one moment of thy kindness or thy truth — if 
thou art a friend, and hast ever wronged, in thought, or 
word, or deed, the spirit that generously confided in thee 
— if thou art a lover, and hast ever given one unmerited 
pang to that time heart which now lies cold and still be- 
neath thy feet; — then be sure that every unkind look, 
every ungracious word, eveiy ungentle action, will come 
thronging back upon thy memory, and knocking dolefully 
at thy soul — then be sure that thou wilt lie down sorrow- 
ing and repentant on the grave, and utter the unheard 
groan, and pour the unavailing tear; more deep, more 
bitter, because unheard and unavailing. 

Then weave thy chaplet of flowers, and strew the beau- 
ties of nature about the grave ; console thy broken spirit, 
if thou canst, with these tender, yet futile tributes of re- 
gret; but take warning by the bitterness of this thy con- 



138 PATHETIC EXTRACTS. 

trite affliction over the dead, and henceforth be more 
faithful and affectionate in the discharge of thy duties to 
the living. Washington Irvine. 



The Broken Heart 

Every one must recollect the tragical story of young 

E , the Irish patriot, it was too touching to be soon 

forgotten. During the troubles in Ireland he was tried, 
condemned, and executed, on a charge of treason. His 
fate made a deep impression on public sympathy. He was 
so young — so intelligent — so generous— so brave — so eveiy 
thing that we are apt to like in a young man. His con- 
duct under trial too, was so lofty and intrepid. The noble 
indignation with which he repelled the charge of treason 
against his country — the eloquent vindication of his name 
— and his pathetic appeal to posterity, in the hopeless hour 
of condemnation — all these entered deeply into every ge- 
nerous bosom, and even his enemies lamented the stern 
policy that dictated his execution. 

But there was one heart, whose anguish it would be 
impossible to describe. In happier days and fairer for- 
tunes, he had won the affections of a beautiful and inte- 
resting girl, the daughter of a late celebrated Irish bar- 
rister. She loved him with the disinterested fervor of a 
woman's first and early love. When eveiy worldly maxim 
arrayed itself against him ; when blasted in fortune, and 
disgrace and danger darkened around his name, she loved 
him the more ardently for his veiy sufferings. If, then, 
his fate could awaken the sympathy, even of his foes, 
what must have been the agony of her whose whole soul 
was occupied by his image ! Let those tell who have had 
the portals of the tomb suddenly closed between them and 
the being they most loved on earth — who have sat at its 
threshold, as one shut out in a cold and lonely world, 
from whence all that was most lovely and loving had de- 
parted. 

rJut then the horrors of such a grave! so frightful, so 
dishonored! There was nothing for memory to dwell on 
that could soothe the pang of separation — none of those 
tender, tho melancholy circumstances that endear the 
parting scene — nothing to melt sorrow into those blessed 



PATHETIC EXTRACTS. 139 

tears, sent, like the clews of heaven, to revive the heart in 
the parching hour of anguish. 

To render her widowed situation more desolate, she 
had incurred her father's displeasure by her unfortunate 
attachment, and was an exile from the paternal roof. But 
could the sympathy and kind offices of friends have reached 
a spirit so shocked and driven in by horror, she would 
have experienced no want of consolation, for the Irish are 
a people of quick and generous sensibilities. The most 
delicate and cherishing attentions were paid her by fa- 
milies of wealth and distinction. She was led into so- 
ciety, and they tried all kinds of occupation and amuse- 
ment to dissipate her grief, and wean her from the tragical 
story of her lover. But it was all in vain. There are 
some strokes of calamity that scathe and scorch the soul — 
that penetrate to the vital seat of happiness — and blast it, 
never again to put forth bud or blossom. She never ob- 
jected to frequent the haunts of pleasure, but she was as 
much alone there as in the depths of solitude. She walked 
about in a sad reverie, apparently unconscious of the world 
around her. She carried with her an inward wo that 
mocked at all the blandishments of friendship, and 
" heeded not the song of the charmer, charm he never so 
wisely." 

The person who told me her story had seen her at a 
masquerade. There can be no exhibition of far-gone 
wretchedness more striking and painful than to meet it in 
such a scene. To find it wandering like a spectre, lonely 
and joyless, where all around is gay — to see it dressed out 
in the trappings of mirth, and looking so wan and wo- 
begone, as if it had tried in vain to cheat the poor heart 
into a momentary forgetfulness of sorrow. After strolling 
through the splendid rooms and giddy crowd with an air 
of utter abstraction, she sat herself down on the steps of 
an orchestra, and looking about for some time with a va- 
cant air, that showed her insensibility to the garish scene, 
she began, with the capriciousness of a sickly heart, to 
warble a little plaintive air. She had an exquisite voice; 
but on this occasion it was so simple, so touching, it 
breathed forth such a soul of wretchedness, that she drew 
a crowd mute and silent around her, and melted every 
one into tears. 



140 PATHETIC EXTRACTS. 

The story of one so true and tender, could not but ex- 
cite great interest In a country remarkable for enthusiasm. 
It completely won the heart of a brave officer, who paid 
his addresses to her, and thought that one so true to the 
dead, could not but prove affectionate to the living. She 
declined his attentions, for her thoughts were irrevocably 
engrossed by the memory of her former lover. He, how- 
ever, persisted in his suit. He solicited not her tender- 
ness, but her esteem. He was assisted by her conviction 
of his worth, and her sense of her own destitute and de- 
pendent situation, for she was existing on the kindness of 
friends. In a word, he at length succeeded in gaining her 
hand, tho with the solemn assurance, that her heart was 
unalterably another's. 

He took her with him to Sicily, hoping that a change 
of scene might wear out the remembrance of early woes. 
She was an amiable and exemplary wife, and made an ef- 
fort to be a happy one; but nothing could cure the silent 
and devouring melancholy that had entered into her very 
soul. She wasted away in a slow, but hopeless decline, 
and at length sunk into the grave, the victim of a broken 
heart. 

It was on her that Moore, the distinguished Irish poet, 
composed the following lines : 

She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps, 

And lovers around her are sighing: 
But coldly she turns from their gaze, and weeps, 

For her heart in his grave is lying. 

She sings the wild songs of her dear native plains, 

Every note which he lov'd awaking — 
Ah ! little they think, who delight in her strains, 

How the heart of the minstrel is breaking! 

He had lived for his love — for his country he died, 
They were all that to life had entwined him — 

Nor soon shall the tears of his country be dried, 
Nor long will his love stay behind him! 

Oh! make her a grave where the sun-beams rest, 
When they promise a glorious morrow; 

They'll shine o'er her sleep, like a smile from the west, 
From her own lov'd island of sorrow ! 

Washington Irvine. 



PATHETIC EXTRACTS. 141 



The Pride of the Village. 

May no wolfe howle : no screech owle stir 

A wing about thy sepulchre ! 

No boysterous winds or stormes come hither, 

To starve or wither 
Thy soft sweet earth ! but, like a spring, 
Love keep it ever flourishing. 

Herrick. 

In the course of an excursion through one of the remote 
counties of England, I had struck into one of those cross 
roads that lead through the more secluded parts of the 
country, and stopped one afternoon at a village, the situa- 
tion of which was beautifully rural and retired. There 
was an air of primitive simplicity about its inhabitants, not 
to be found in the villages which he on the great coach 
roads. I determined to pass the night there, and having 
taken an early dinner, strolled out to enjoy the neighbour- 
ing scenery. 

My ramble, as is usually the case with travellers, soon 
led me to the church, which stood at a little distance from 
the village. Indeed, it was an object of some curiosity, 
its old tower being completely overrun with ivy, so that 
only here and there a jutting buttress, an angle of grey 
wall, or a fantastically carved ornament, peered through 
the verdant covering. It was a lovely evening. The 
early part of the day had been dark and showery, but in 
the afternoon it had cleared up ; and tho sullen clouds still 
hung over head, yet there was a broad tract of golden sky 
in the west, from which the setting sun gleamed through 
the dripping leaves, and lit up all nature into a melancholy 
smile. It seemed like the parting hour of a good Chris- 
tian, smiling on the sins and sorrows of the world, and 
giving, in the serenity of his decline, an assurance that he 
will rise again in glory. 

I had seated myself on a half-sunken tomb-stone, and 
was musing, as one is apt to do at this sober-thoughted 
hour, on past scenes, and early friends — on those who 
were distant, and those who were dead — and indulging in 
that kind of melancholy fancying, which has in it some- 
thing sweeter even than pleasure. Every now and then, ' 
the stroke of a bell from the neighbouring tower fell on 
my ear ; its tones were in unison with the scene, and, in- 



142 PATHETIC EXTRACTS. 

stead of jarring, chimed in with my feelings ; and it was 
some time before I recollected, that it must be tolling the 
knell of some new tenant of the tomb. 

Presently I saw a funeral train moving across the vil- 
lage green; it wound slowly along a lane; was lost, and 
re-appeared through the breaks of the hedges, until it 
passed the place where I was sitting. The pall was sup- 
ported by young girls, dressed in white; and another, 
about the age of seventeen, walked before, bearing a 
chaplet of white flowers ; a token that the deceased was a 
young and unmarried female. The corpse was followed 
by the parents. They were a venerable couple of the 
better order of peasantry. The father seemed to repress 
his feelings; but his fixed eye, contracted brow, and 
deeply -furrowed face, showed the struggle that was pass- 
ing within. His wife hung on his arm, and wept aloud 
with the convulsive bursts of a mother's sorrow. 

I followed the funeral into the church. The bier was 
placed in the centre aisle, and the chaplet of white flowers, 
with a pair of white gloves, were hung over the seat which 
the deceased had occupied. 

Every one knows the soul-subduing pathos of the fu- 
neral service: for who is so fortunate as never to have 
followed some one he has loved to the tomb? but when 
performed over the remains of innocence and beauty, thus 
laid low in the bloom of existence — what can be more af- 
fecting? At that simple, but most solemn consignment 
of the body to the grave — " Earth to earth — ashes to 
ashes — dust to dust!" the tears of the youthful com- 
panions of the deceased flowed unrestrained. The father 
still seemed to struggle with his feelings, and to comfort 
himself with the assurance, that the dead are blessed which 
die in the Lord; but the mother only thought of her child 
as a flower of the field cut down and withered in the midst 
of its sweetness: she was like Rachel, " mourning over 
her children, and would not be comforted.' , 

On returning to the inn, I learnt the whole story of the 
deceased. It was a simple one, and such as has often been 
told. She had been the beauty and pride of the village. 
Her father had once been an opulent farmer, but was re- 
duced in circumstances. This was an only child, and 
brought up entirely at home, in the simplicity of rural 



PATHETIC EXTRACTS. 143 

life. She had been the pupil of the village pastor, the 
favorite lamb of his little flock. The good man watched 
over her education with paternal care; it was limited, and 
suitable to the sphere in which she was to move; for he 
only sought to make her an ornament to her station in 
life, not to raise her above it. The tenderness and indul- 
gence of her parents, and the exemption from all ordinary 
occupations, had fostered a natural grace and delicacy of 
character, that accorded with the fragile loveliness of her 
form. She appeared like some tender plant of the garden, 
blooming accidentally amid the hardier natives of the 
fields. 

The superiority of her charms was felt and acknow- 
ledged by her companions, but without envy; for it was 
surpassed by the unassuming gentleness and winning 
kindness of her manners. It might be truly said of her, 

" This is the prettiest low-born lass, that ever 

Ran on the green-sward: nothing she does or seems, 
But smacks of something greater than herself; 
Too noble for this place." 

The village was one of those sequestered spots, which 
still retain some vestiges of old English customs. It had 
its rural festivals and holy-day pastimes, and still kept up 
some faint observance of the once popular rites of May. 
These, indeed, had been promoted by its present pastor; 
who was a lover of old customs, and one of those simple 
Christians that think their mission fulfilled by promoting 
joy on earth and good-will among mankind. Under his 
auspices the May-pole stood from year to year in the 
centre of the village green; on May-day it was decorated 
with garlands and streamers ; and a queen or lady of the 
May was appointed, as in former times, to preside at the 
sports, and distribute the prizes and rewards. The pic- 
turesque situation of the village, and the fancifulness of 
its rustic fetes, would often attract the notice of casual 
visitors. Among these, on one May-day, was a young 
officer, whose regiment had been recently quartered in 
the neighbourhood. He was charmed with the native 
taste that pervaded this village pageant; but, above all, 
with the dawning loveliness of the queen of May. It was 
the village favorite, who was crowned with flowers, and 
blushing and smiling in all the beautiful confusion of girlish 



144 PATHETIC EXTRACTS. 

diffidence and delight. The artlessness of rural habits 
enabled him readily to make her acquaintance; he grad- 
ually won his way into her intimacy; and paid his court 
to her in that unthinking way in which young officers are 
too apt to trifle with rustic simplicity. 

There was nothing in his advances to startle or alarm. 
He never even talked of love: but there are modes of 
making it more eloquent than language, and which con- 
vey it subtilely and irresistibly to the heart. The beam 
of the eye, the tone of voice, the thousand tendernesses 
which emanate from every word, and look, and action — 
these form the true eloquence of love, and can always be 
felt and understood, but never described. Can we wonder 
that they should readily win a heart, young, guileless, and 
susceptible? As to her, she loved almost unconsciously; 
she scarcely inquired what was the growing passion that 
was absorbing every thought and feeling, or what were to 
be its consequences. She, indeed, looked not to the fu- 
ture. When present, his looks and words occupied her 
whole attention; when absent, she thought but of what 
had passed at their recent interview. She would wander 
with him through the green lanes and rural scenes of the 
vicinity. He taught her to see new beauties in nature; 
he talked in the language of polite and cultivated life, and 
breathed into her ear the witcheries of romance and poetry. 

Perhaps there could not have been a passion, between 
the sexes, more pure than this innocent girl's. The gallant 
figure of her youthful admirer, and the splendor of his 
military attire, might at first have charmed her eye; but 
it was not these that had captivated her heart. Her at- 
tachment had something in it of idolatry. She looked up 
to him as to a being of a superior order. She felt in his 
society the enthusiasm of a mind naturally delicate and 
poetical, and now first awakened to a keen perception of 
the beautiful and grand. Of the sordid distinctions of 
rank and fortune, she thought nothing; it was the differ- 
ence of intellect, of demeanor, of manners, from those of 
the rustic society to which she had been accustomed, that 
elevated him in her opinion. She would listen to him 
with charmed ear and downcast look of mute delight, and 
her cheek would mantle with enthusiasm,; or if ever she 
ventured a shy glance of timid admiration, it was as 



PATHETIC EXTRACTS. 145 

quickly withdrawn, and she would sigh and blush at the 
idea of her comparative un worthiness. 

Her lover was equally impassioned ; but his passion was 
mingled with feelings of a coarser nature. He had begun 
the connexion in levity; for he had often heard his brother 
officers boast of their village conquests, and thought some 
triumph of the kind necessary to his reputation as a man 
of spirit. But he was too full of youthful fervor. His 
heart had not been rendered sufficiently cold and selfish 
by a wandering and a dissipated life: it caught fire from 
the very flame it sought to kindle; and before he was 
aware of the nature of his situation, he became really in 
love. 

What was he to do? There were the old obstacles 
which so incessantly occur in these heedless attachments. 
His rank in life — the prejudices of titled connexions — his 
dependence upon a proud and unyielding father — all for- 
bade him to think of matrimony; — but when he looked 
down upon this innocent being, so tender and confiding, 
there was a purity in her manners, a blamelessness in her 
life, and a beseeching modesty in her looks, that awed 
down every licentious feeling. In vain did he try to for- 
tify himself by a thousand heartless examples of men of 
fashion; and to chill the glow of generous sentiment, with 
that cold derisive levity with which he had heard them 
talk of female virtue ; whenever he came into her presence, 
she was still surrounded by that mysterious, but impassive 
charm of virgin purity, in whose hallowed sphere no guilty 
thought can live. 

The sudden arrival of orders for the regiment to repair 
to the continent, completed the confusion of his mind. 
He remained for a short time in a state of the most pain- 
ful irresolution; he hesitated to communicate the tidings, 
until the day for marching was at hand ; when he gave her 
the intelligence in the course of an evening ramble. 

The idea of parting had never before occurred to her. 
It broke in at once upon her dream of felicity; she looked 
upon it as a sudden and insurmountable evil, and wept 
with the guileless simplicity of a child. He drew her to 
his bosom, and kissed the tears from her soft cheek; nor 
did he meet with a repulse; for there are moments of 
jmaingled sorrow and tenderness, which hallow the caresses 



146 PATHETIC EXTRACTS. 

of affection. He was naturally impetuous; and the sight 
of beauty, apparently yielding in his arms ; the confidence 
of his power over her; and the dread of losing her for 
ever; all conspired to overwhelm his better feelings — he 
ventured to propose that she should leave her home, and 
be the companion of his fortunes. 

He was quite a novice in seduction, and blushed and 
faltered at his own baseness ; but so innocent of mind was 
his intended victim, that she was at first at a loss to com- 
prehend his meaning; and why she should leave her na- 
tive village, and the humble roof of her parents? When 
at last the nature of his proposal flashed upon her pure 
mind, the effect was withering. She did not weep — she 
did not break forth into reproach — she said not a word — 
but she shrunk back aghast as from a viper; gave him a 
look of anguish that pierced to his very soul; and clasp- 
ing her hands in agony, fled, as if for refuge, to her fa- 
ther's cottage. 

The officer retired, confounded, humiliated, and re- 
pentant. It is uncertain what might have been the re- 
sult of the conflict of his feelings, had not his thoughts 
been diverted by the bustle of departure. New scenes, 
new pleasures, and new companions, soon dissipated his 
self-reproach, and stifled his tenderness ; yet, amidst the 
stir of camps, the revelries of garrisons, the array of ar- 
mies, and even the din of battles, his thoughts would 
sometimes steal back to the scene of rural quiet and vil- 
lage simplicity — the white cottage — the footpath along 
the silver brook and up the hawthorn hedge, and the little 
village maid loitering along it, leaning on his arm, and 
listening to him with eyes beaming with unconscious af- 
fection. 

The shock which the poor girl had received, in the 
destruction of all her ideal world, had indeed been cruel. 
Faintings and hysterics had at first shaken her tender 
frame, and were succeeded by a settled and pining mel- 
ancholy. She had beheld from her window the march 
of the departing troops. She had seen her faithless lover 
borne off, as if in triumph, amidst the sound of drum and 
trumpet, and the pomp of arms. She strained a last aching 
gaze after him, as the morning sun glittered about his 
figure, and his plume waved in the breeze; he passed 



PATHETIC EXTRACTS. 147 

away like a bright vision from her sight and left her all in 
darkness. 

It would be trite to dwell on the particulars of her 
after-story. It was, like other tales of love, melancholy* 
She avoided society, and wandered out alone in the walks 
she had most frequented with her lover. She sought, like 
the stricken deer, to weep in silence and loneliness, and 
brood over the barbed sorrow that rankled in her soul. 
Sometimes she would be seen late of an evening sitting in 
the porch of the village church; and the milkmaids, re- 
turning from the fields, would now and then overhear her, 
singing some plaintive ditty in the hawthorn walk. She 
became fervent in her devotions at church ; and as the old 
people saw her approach, so wasted away, yet with a 
hectic bloom, and that hallowed air which melancholy 
diffuses round the form, they would make way for her, as 
for something spiritual, and, looking after her, would shake 
their heads in gloomy foreboding. 

She felt a conviction that she was hastening to the tomb, 
but looked forward to it as a place, of rest. The silver 
cord that had bound her to existence was loosed, and there 
seemed to be no more pleasure under the sun. If ever 
her gentle bosom had entertained resentment against her 
lover, it was extinguished. She was incapable of angry 
passions; and in a moment of saddened tenderness, she 
penned him a farewell letter. It was couched in the sim- 
plest language ; but touching from its very simplicity. She 
told him that she was dying, and did not conceal from him 
that his conduct was the cause. She even depicted the 
sufferings which she had experienced ; but concluded with 
saying, that she could not die in peace, until she had sent 
him her forgiveness and her blessing. 

By degress her strength declined, that she could no 
longer leave the cottage. She could only totter to the 
window, where, propped up in her chair, it was her en- 
joyment to sit all day and look out upon the landscape. 
Still she uttered no complaint, nor imparted to any one 
the malady that was preying on her heart. She never 
even mentioned her lover's name ; but would lay her head 
on her mother's bosom and weep in silence. Her poor 
parents hung, in mute anxiety, over this fading blossom 
of their hopes, still flattering themselves that it might again 



148 PATHETIC EXTRACTS. 

revive to freshness, and that the bright unearthy bloom 
which sometimes flushed her cheek might be the promise 
of returning health. 

In this way she was seated between them one Sunday 
afternoon; her hands were clasped in their's, the lattice 
was thrown open, and the soft air that stole in, brought 
with it the fragrance of the clustering honeysuckle which 
her own hands had trained round the window. 

Her father had just been reading a chapter in the Bible : 
it spoke of the vanity of worldly things, and of the joys of 
heaven; it seemed to have diffused comfort and serenity 
through her bosom. Her eye was fixed on the distant 
village church; the bell had tolled for the evening service; 
the last villager was lagging into the porch; and every 
thing had sunk into that hallowed stillness peculiar to the 
day of rest. Her parents were gazing on her with yearn- 
ing hearts. Sickness and sorrow, which pass so roughly 
over some faces, had given to hers the expression of a 
seraph's. A tear trembled in her soft blue eye. — Was 
she thinking of her faithless lover? — or were her thoughts 
wandering to that distant churchyard, into whose bosom 
she might soon be gathered? 

Suddenly the clang of hoofs was heard — a horseman 
galloped to the cottage — he dismounted before the win- 
dow — the poor girl gave a faint exclamation, and sunk 
back in her chair; — -it was her repentant lover! He rushed 
into the house, and flew to clasp her to his bosom; but 
her wasted form — her death-like countenance — -so wan, 
yet so lovely in its desolation, — smote him to the soul, 
and he threw himself in an agony at her feet. She was 
too faint to rise — she attempted to extend her trembling 
hand — her lips moved as if she spoke, but no word was 
articulated — she looked down upon him with a smile of 
unutterable tenderness, — and closed her eyes for ever! 

Such are the particulars which I gathered of this village 
story. They are but scanty, and I am conscious have 
little novelty to recommend them. In the present rage 
also for strange incident and high-seasoned narrative, they 
may appear trite and insignificant, but they interested me 
strongly at the time ; and, taken in connexion with the 
affecting ceremony which I had just witnessed, left a 
deeper impression on my mind than many circumstances 



PATHETIC EXTRACTS. 149 

of a more striking nature. I have passed through the 
place since, and visited the church again, from a better 
motive than mere curiosity. It was a wintry evening; 
the trees were stripped of their foliage; the churchyard 
looked naked and mournful, and the wind rustled coldly 
through the dry grass. Evergreens, however, had been 
planted about the grave of the village favorite, and osiers 
were bent over it to keep the turf uninjured. 

The church door was open, and I stepped in. There 
hung the chaplet of flowers and the gloves, as on the day 
of the funeral: the flowers were withered, it is true, but 
care seemed to have been taken that no dust should soil 
their whiteness. I have seen many monuments, where 
art has exhausted its powers to awaken the sympathy of 
the spectator; but I have met with none that spoke more 
touchingly to my heart, than this simple, but delicate me- 
mento of departed innocence. Washington Irvine* 



The Story of Mary Watson. 
It was on one of those nights which to the sad and 
solitary heart, seems to sympathise more kindly in its 
sorrows than all the glare of sunshine, or the glory of 
summer, that Miss Watson wandered forth, unobserved 
as she imagined, to look upon a world now desolate and 

dreary as her own bosom. Mr. W , who was now 

unusually disposed to solitude and melancholy, was seated 
at a window of the castle, which commanded a long and 
narrow prospect up the glen, through which ran a moun- 
tain stream, bursting, at one time, over a tremendous pre- 
cipice; at another, gliding smoothly through the green 
and living pastures; now forcing its way among grey 
rocks, and raging against the huge stones that opposed its 
course ; then mingling from afar and near its rushing with 
the roar of the tempest. Pensive and even sad for a while, 
his eye ranged over the confused and darkening prospect; 
while an emotion allied to both pleasure and pain, seemed 
to control his mind, and stretch it beyond its usual powers 
of comprehension. From thoughts so full and so large, 
and excursions so wide and so varied, we would suppose 
the mind could not be easily withdrawn; yet so high and 



150 PATHETIC EXTRACTS. 

so haughty is the dominion of the affections, that a small 
object which claims in these a deep, and strong, and in- 
dividual interest, will call down the senses from the most 
exquisite enjoyment, and the intellect from the most ab- 
struse speculation. From this mental reverie, full of 
storms, torrents, mists, and clouds, the figure of Miss 
Watson, wandering alone, now attracted the ardent gaze 
of Mr. W 's eye, and the collected powers of his in- 
tellect and imagination. 

Up the side of the stream, now swelled into a rapid 
torrent, a narrow path had been artificially cut, which 
winded round the edges of rocks and precipices, tracing 
the rivulet's course through the whole length of the glen, 
in all its bold and broken scenery, and amidst its softer 
sweeps and gentler meanderings. It was along this path 
that Miss Watson bent her way, — her figure occasionally 
seen on the green and level sward, and again lost behind the 
points of rocks over which she wandered. She proceeded 
forward, amidst the confusion of sounds and scenes, the 
rushing of torrents, the sweeping of clouds, and the lash- 
ing of rains. She paused on the brink of a waterfall, to 
look down on the abyss below, till she was totally lost 
amidst the mists and vapors that enveloped the Vale of 
Inisfalla. He continued to gaze long after she had van- 
ished from his view; for his deluded sense still saw her 
mingling with the clouds, and flitting among the wreck 
in which she was shrouded. When the illusion was gone, 
he recollected what it was that occupied his attention; 
and hurrying down stairs, and away from the castle, he 
began to trace her footsteps. 

There is a state of mind bordering on insanity, which 

Mr. W now experienced. While it prevails, the 

senses lose their power, and are incapable of reflecting 
back the images impressed on them ; the lightning glares 
idly on the fixed eye-ball, and the thunders roll above, 
and break beneath, unheard. No object had sufficient in- 
fluence to call off the determined attention of Mr. W— , 

or strike him with such force as to cause a single sense to 
waver. Far up the glen he pursued his course, till he 
beheld the object of his search, standing like a spirit of 
the storm, wrapped in the folds of a dense cloud, on a 
steep cliff overlooking a cascade that bounded over the 



PATHETIC EXTRACTS. 151 

rugged rocks, and flung its spray among the brown hazels 
that embraced them. It would have been no difficult 
matter to approach unseen and unheard, amidst the deaf- 
ening roar of storms and cataracts : for she stood wrapped 
in her own meditations, and was even lost for the moment 
to her habitual reflections and sorrows. He continued his 
path breathless and exhausted: nor was he yet duly aware 
of his own wishes and determinations. As he approached, 
Miss Watson recognised him through the deep grey haze ; 
it was lucky, for a sudden surprise might have now ter- 
minated her life and her sorrows. On advancing nearer, 
he was about to stammer out an apology in his usual po- 
lite, and distant, and worldly manner; but here was a sit- 
uation, his worldly passions could not overcome. He felt 
that the poor and friendless governess was dearer to him 
than all the empty titles of birth, the splendor of rank, 
and the glory of the world; and he willingly acknowledged 
her the arbiter of his life, his happiness, and his destiny. 

It would be vain to repeat the often-told tale, of vows, 
and pledges, and long, and warm, and stolen interviews, 
and rapturous meetings, and reluctant partings. These 
we can well suppose. But when the young and dying 
lady related her story to me, she had forgotten all these, 
and was only bestowing and asking forgiveness. She who 
is inclined to blame Miss Watson's conduct, so far as I 
have yet related her history, may lay her hand on her 
heart, and pause before she pronounce the sentence. 

In an evil hour Miss Watson consented to a marriage 
with Mr. W , unsanctioned by any of those formali- 
ties which legalise and bind the parties in the eye of the 
world; where nothing was sought or given but the con- 
sent of two hearts, and none but the Almighty witnessed 
the obligation. To her the consequences were terrible. 
If no power had ever counteracted his wishes, her hus- 
band might never have forsaken her: contented and happy 
together, they might have glided down the stream of life, 
had no storm ever crossed its current. But to brave a fa- 
ther's wrath, and the contumely of a world he should have 

despised, was far above Mr. W 's pitch of character. 

It was easier, he now thought, to violate an engagement 
he had made with an unprotected woman, than to be 
stripped of his worldly rank and enjoyments: it was easier 



152 PATHETIC EXTRACTS, 

to be rich and infamous, than to be poor and upright. She 
too might have lived in splendid misery, had her heart 
been less tender, and her affections less pure. But the 
fountain from whence they flowed had never been sullied ; 
and as the flames of love and life had glowed, so they 
languished and expired together. 

It was in a cottage, if it deserved so comfortable a name, 
in the suburbs on the south-east side of the city, in a small 
chamber, distinguished more for the manner than the 
matter of its arrangement, that I first visited Mary Wat- 
son. It was clean and white-washed; and as the bed 
where she lay fronted the only window* it commanded a 
view of the River, and the Green with all its moving 
sceneiy. The park and the trees, she said, reminded her 
of Moscow and her father s dwelling. Curiosity leads me 
sometimes to inquire after such scenes, and such unfor- 
tunate strangers. There was little more passed at our first 
interview than some few inquiries after her health. I saw 
she was dying; and I hinted that if there were any earthly 
comforts she might want, I knew a source from whence 
they would cheerfully be supplied. To her cheek, from 
which the hectic flush had just faded, and which was now 
resting cold and white on her hand, there rushed an over- 
flowing tide of blood ; and so bright did it glow and rapid 
did it circle, and so full of life was the glance of her eye, 
that for a moment I was deceived, and thought that all 
might yet be well. But I had mistaken the feeling that 
now animated her feeble frame. In health, it would have 
been indignation and disdain; in death, it was an emotion 
for which we have not yet found a name. " Tell him!" 
she said; — and the tide began to ebb with the same ra- 
pidity it had flowed ; — " Tell him ! " — and she sank away 
lifeless and exhausted on the pillow. I could not leave 
the house till she recovered; when an explanation fol- 
lowed, that led her to reveal to me the story of her life. 

The last time I had the melancholy pleasure of hearing 
her talk, was on the evening before her death. She was 
sitting up in her bed, or rather leaning on her elbow, her 
face bent downwards in the attitude of grief. I could per- 
ceive that something extraordinary occupied her thoughts, 
from the agonizing sobs, and deep drawn sighs that she 
uttered. " Oh! thy father!" she said; "had he but 



PATHETIC EXTRACTS. 153 

known the heart of his Mary! She had no other object 
in the world to love than him ; and but that it is broken, 
this heart would have been transferred to thee!" She 
then pressed the infant to her bosom, as if she would have 
forced it to enter and take possession of that heart, deso- 
late and broken as it was. Another sigh followed, and a 
shower of tears came to her relief. She offered the babe 
to its nurse; and the cherub smiling, leaped into her arms. 
" Oh had thy father!" she said again; — and raising her 
eyes, she saw me — " It will soon be all over," she add- 
ed; and taking my hand, she directed my attention to 
her infant, by a motion which I could not fail to under- 
stand. Our interview was short, as I saw she was ex- 
hausted. — Early next morning she expired. Attic Stories. 






Liberty and Slavery. 

Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery! still thou 
art a bitter draught; and tho thousands, in all ages, have 
been made to drink of thee, thou art not less bitter on that 
account. It is thou, Liberty! thrice sweet and gracious 
goddess ! whom all, in public or in private, worship ; whose 
taste is grateful, and ever will be so, till Nature herself 
shall change. No tint of words can spot thy snowy man- 
tle, or chemic power turn thy sceptre into iron. With 
thee to smile upon him as he eats his crust, the swain is 
happier than his monarch; from whose court thou art ex- 
iled. Gracious heaven! grant me but health, thou great 
bestower of it! and give me but this fair goddess as my 
companion! and shower down thy mitres, if it seem good 
unto thy divine providence, upon those heads which are 
aching for them! 

Pursuing these ideas, I sat down close by my table; 
and leaning my head upon my hand, I began to figure to 
myself the miseries of confinement. I was in a right frame 
for it, and so I gave full scope to my imagination. 

I was going to begin with the millions of my fellow- 
creatures, born to no inheritance but slavery; but finding, 
however affecting the picture was, that I could not bring 
it near me, and that the multitude of sad groups in it did 
but distract me — I took a single captive ; and having first 



154 PATHETIC EXTRACTS. 

shut him up in his dungeon, I then looked through the 
twilight of his grated door to take his picture. 

I beheld his body half wasted away with long expecta- 
tion and confinement; and felt what kind of sickness of 
the heart it is which arises from hope deferred. Upon 
looking nearer, I saw him pale snd feverish. In thirty 
years, the western breeze had not once fanned his blood — 
he had seen no sun, no moon, in all that time — nor had 
the voice of friend or kinsman breathed through his lat- 
tice. His children — but here my heart began to bleed — 
and I was forced to go on with another part of the por- 
trait. 

He was sitting upon the ground, upon a little straw in 
the farthest corner of his dungeon, which was alternately 
his chair and bed. A little kalendar of small sticks was 
laid at the head, notched all over with the dismal days 
and nights he had passed there. He had one of these 
little sticks in his hand; and, with a rusty nail, he was 
etching another day of misery, to add to the heap. As I 
darkened the little light he had, he lifted up a hopeless 
eye towards the door — then cast it down — shook his head 
— and went on with his work of affliction. I heard his 
chains upon his legs, as he turned his body to lay his 
little stick upon the bundle — he gave a deep sigh — I saw 
the iron enter into his soul — I burst into tears.— I could 
not sustain the picture of confinement which my fancy had 
drawn. Sterne* 



Comal and Galvina. 

" Mournful is thy tale, son of the car," said Carril of 
other times. — " It sends my soul back to the ages of old, 

and to the days of other years Often have I heard of 

Comal, who slew the friend he loved; yet victory at- 
tended his steel; and the battle was consumed in his 
presence. 

" Comal was the son of Albion; the chief of a hundred 
hills. — His deer drank of a thousand streams. — A thousand 
rocks replied to the voice of his dogs. — His face was the 
mildness of youth. — His hand the death of heroes. — One 
was his love, and fair was she ! the daughter of mighty 
Conloch. — She appeared like a sun-beam among women. — 



PATHETIC EXTRACTS. 155 

Her hair was like the wing of the raven. — Her dogs 
were taught to the chase. — Her bow-string sounded on 

the winds of the forest. — Her soul was fixed on Comal 

Often met their eyes of love. — Their course in the chase 
was one. — Happy were their words in secret. — But Gor- 
mal loved the maid, the dark chief of the gloomy Ard- 
ven. — He watched her lone steps in the heath; the foe of 
unhappy Comal! 

" One day, tired of the chase, when the mist had con- 
cealed their friends, Comal and the daughter of Conloch 
met, in the cave of Ronan. — It was the wonted haunt of 
Comal. — Its sides were hung with his arms. — A hundred 
shields of thongs were there ; a hundred helms of sound- 
ing steel. — < Rest here,' he said, ' my love, Galvina; 
thou light of the cave of Ronan! A deer appears on 
Mora's brow. — I go ; but I will soon return.' — < I fear/ 
she said, ' dark Gormal my foe; he haunts the cave of 
Ronan! I will rest among the arms; but soon return, 
my love.' 

" He went to the deer of Mora. — The daughter of Con- 
loch would needs try his love. — She clothed her white sides 
with his armor, and strode from the cave of Ronan! — 
He thought it was his foe. — His heart beat high. — His 
color changed, and darkness dimmed his eyes. — He drew 
the bow. — The arrow flew. — Galvina fell in blood! — He 
ran with wildness in his steps, and called the daughter of 
Conloch. — No answer in the lonely cave — ' Where art 
thou, O my love?' — He saw, at length, her heaving heart 

beating around the feathered arrow ' O Conloch's 

daughter, is it thou?' — He sunk upon her breast. — 

" The hunters found the hapless pair. He afterwards 
walked the hill — but many and silent were his steps round 
the dark dwelling of his love. — The fleet of the ocean 
came. — He fought; the strangers fled. — He searched for 
death along the field — But who could slay the mighty 
Comal! — He threw away his dark-brown shield. — An ar- 
row found his manly breast. — He sleeps with his loved 
Galvina, at the noise of the sounding surge ! — Their green 
tombs are seen by the mariner, when he bounds o'er the 
waves of the north." Ossian. 



156 PATHETIC EXTRACTS, 



The Elders Death-bed. 

" Jamie, thy own father has forgotten thee in thy in- 
fancy, and me in my old age ; but, Jamie, forget not thou 
thy father, nor thy mother; for that, thou knowest and 
feelest, is the commandment of God." 

The broken-hearted boy could give no reply. He had 
gradually stolen closer and closer unto the loving old man, 
and now was lying, worn out with sorrow, drenched and 
dissolved in tears, in his grandfathers bosom. His mo- 
ther had sunk down on her knees, and hid her face with 
her hand. " Oh! if my husband knew but of this — he 
would never, never desert his dying father! " And I now 
knew, that the Elder was praying on his death-bed for a 
disobedient and wicked son. 

At this affecting time, the Minister took the Family 
Bible on his knees, and said, " Let us sing to the praise 
and glory of God, part of the fifteenth psalm;" and he 
read, with a tremulous and broken voice, those beautiful 
verses, 

" Within thy tabernacle, Lord, 

Who shall abide with thee ? 
And in thy high and holy hill, 

Who shall a dweller be? 

" The man that walketh uprightly, 

And worketh righteousness, 

And as he thinketh in his heart, 

So doth he truth express." 

Ere the psalm was yet over, the door was opened, and 
a tall, fine-looking man entered, but with a lowering and 
dark countenance, seemingly in sorrow, in misery, and 
remorse. Agitated, confounded, and awe-struck by the 
melancholy and dirge-like music, he sat down on a chair, 
and looked with a ghastly face towards his fathers bed. 
When tfie psalm ceased, the Elder said, with a solemn 
voice, " My son — thou art come in time to receive thy 
father's blessing. May the remembrance of what will 
happen in this room, before the morning again shine over 
the Hazelglen, win thee from the error of thy ways ! Thou 
art here to witness the mercy of thy God and thy Saviour, 
whom thou hast forgotten." 

The Minister looked, if not with a stern, yet with an 
upbraiding countenance, on the young man, who had not 






PATHETIC EXTRACTS. 157 

recovered his speech, and said, " William! for three years 
past your shadow has not darkened the door of the house 
of God. They who fear not the thunder, may tremble at 
the still small voice — now is the hour for repentance — that 
your father's spirit may carry up to heaven tidings of a 
contrite soul saved from the company of sinners 1" 

The young man, with much effort, advanced to the bed- 
side, and at last found voice to say, " Father — I am not 
without the affections of nature — and I hurried home the 
moment I heard that the minister had been seen riding 
towards our house. I hope that you will yet recover, and, 
if I have ever made you unhappy, I ask your forgiveness— 
for though I may not think as you do on matters of reli- 
gion, I have a human heart. Father! I may have been 
unkind, but I am not cruel. I ask your forgiveness.'' 

" Come near to me, William; kneel down by the bed- 
side, and let my hand feel the head of my beloved son — 
for blindness is coming fast upon me. Thou wert my 
first-bora, and thou art my only living son. All thy 
brothers and sisters are. lying in the churchyard, beside 
her whose sweet face thine own, William, did once so 
much resemble. Long wert thou the joy, the pride of my 
soul, — aye, too much the pride, for there was not in all 
the parish such a man, such a son, as my own William, 
If thy heart has since been changed, God may inspire it 
again with right thoughts. I have sorely wept for thee — 
aye, William, when there was none near me — even as 
David wept for Absalom — for thee, my son, my son!" 

A long deep groan was the only reply; but the whole 
body of the kneeling man was convulsed; and it was easy 
to see his sufferings, his contrition, his remorse, and his 
despair. The Pastor said, with a sterner voice, and au- 
sterer countenance than were natural to him, " Know you 
whose hand is now lying on your rebellious head? But 
what signifies the word father to him who has denied God 
the Father of us all?" " Oh! press him not too hardly," 
said his weeping wife, coming forward from a dark corner 
of the room, where she tried to conceal herself in grief, 
fear, and shame. " Spare, Oh! spare my husband — he 
has ever been kind to me;" and with that she knelt down 
beside him, with her long soft white arms mournfully, 
and affectionately laid across his neck. " Go thou, like- 
p 



]58 PATHETIC EXTRACTS. 

wise, my sweet little Jamie," said the Elder, " go even 
out of my bosom, and kneel down beside thy father and 
thy mother, so that I may bless you all at once, and with 
one yearning prayer." The child did as the solemn voice 
commanded, and knelt down somewhat timidly by his 
fathers side; nor did the unhappy man decline encircling 
with his arm, the child too much neglected, but still dear 
to him as his own blood, in spite of the deadening and 
debasing influence of infidelity. 

" Put the word of God into the hands of my son, and 
let him read aloud to his dying father the 25th, 26th, and 
27th verses of the eleventh chapter of the gospel accord- 
ing to St. John." The Pastor went up to the kneelers, 
and, with a voice of pity, condolence, and pardon, said, 
" There was a time when none, William, could read the 
Scriptures better than couldst thou — can it be that the 
son of my friend hath forgotten the lessons of his youth ?" 
He had not forgotten them — there was no need for the 
repentant sinner to lift up his eyes from the bed-side. 
The sacred stream of the gospel had worn a channel in 
his heart, and the waters were again flowing. With a 
choked voice he said, " Jesus said unto her, I am the 
resurrection and the life: And whosoever liveth, and 
believeth in me, shall never die. Believest thou this? 
She said unto him, Yea, Lord: I believe thou art the 
Christ, the son of God, which should come into the 
world." 

" That it is not an unbeliever's voice," said the dying 
man, triumphantly; " nor, William, hast thou an unbe- 
lievers heart. Say that thou believest in what thou hasl; 
now read, and thy father will die happy!" " I do be- 
lieve; and as thou forgivest me, so may I be forgiven by 
my Father who is in heaven." The Elder seemed like a 
man suddenly inspired with a new life. His faded eyes 
kindled — his pale cheeks glowed — his palsied hands 
seemed to wax strong — and his voice was clear as that of 
manhood in its prime. " Into thy hands, O God! I com- 
mit my spirit;" and, so saying, he gently sunk back on 
his pillow; and I thought I heard a sigh — There was 
then a long deep silence, and the father, the mother, and 
the child, rose from their knees. The eyes of us all were 
turned towards the white placid face of the figure now 



PATHETIC EXTRACTS. 159 

stretched in everlasting rest ; and, without lamentations, 
save the silent lamentations of the resigned soul, we stood 
around the Death-bed of the Elder. Wilson. 



Reyno and Alpin. 

Reyno. The wind and rain are over; calm is the noon 
of day. The clouds are divided in heaven; over the green 
hill, flies the inconstant sun; red, through the stony vale, 
comes down the stream of the hill. — Sweet are thy mur- 
murs, O stream! but more sweet is the voice I hear. — It 
is the voice of Alpin, the son of song, mourning for the 
dead. — Bent is his head of age, and red his tearful eye- — 
Alpin, thou son of song, why alone on the silent hill? 
Why complainest thou as a blast in the wood — as a wave 
on the lonely shore? 

Alpin. My tears, O Reyno! are for the dead — my 
voice for the inhabitants of the grave. Tall thou art on 
the hill; fair among the sons of the plain — but thou shalt 
fall like Morar; and the mourner shall sit on thy tomb. 
The hills shall know thee no more, thy bow shall lie in 
the hall unstrung. — Thou wert swift, O Morar! as a roe 
on the hill — terrible as a meteor of fire. — Thy wrath was 
as the storm — thy sword, in battle, as lightning in the 
field. — Thy voice was like a stream after rain — like thun- 
der on distant hills. — Many fell by thy arm — they were 
consumed in the flames of thy wrath. But when thou 
didst return from war, how peaceful was thy brow! Thy 
face was like the sun after rain — like the moon in the si- 
lence of night — calm as the breast of the lake, when the 
loud wind is hushed into repose. — Narrow is thy dwelling 
now — dark the place of thine abode. With three steps I 
compass thy grave, O thou who wast so great before! 
Four stones, with their heads of moss, are the only me- 
morial of thee. A tree, with scarce a leaf— long grass 
whistling in the wind — mark to the hunter's eye, the 
grave of the mighty Morar. — Morar! thou art low in- 
deed: thou hast no mother to mourn thee; no maid 
with her tears of love: dead is she that brought thee 

forth; fallen is the daughter of Morglan Who, on his 

staff, is this? who this, whose head is white with age, 



160 PATHETIC EXTRACTS. 

whose eyes are galled with tears, who quakes at every 
step? — It is thy father, O Morar! the father of no son, 
but thee. — Weep, thou father of Morar! weep; but thy 
son heareth thee not. Deep is the sleep of the dead — low 
their pillow of dust. No more shall he hear thy voice — « 
no more awake at thy call. — When shall it be morn in the 
grave, to bid the slumberer awake ? Farewell thou bravest 
of men: thou conqueror in the field: but the field shall 
see thee no more ; nor the gloomy wood be lightened with 
the splendor of thy steel. — Thou hast left no son — but the 
song shall preserve thy name, Ossian. 



BIOGRAPHICAL EXTRACTS, 



Character of Queen Elizabeth. 

There are few personages in history, who have been 
more exposed to the calumny of enemies, and the adula- 
tion of friends, than Queen Elizabeth; and yet there is 
scarce any whose reputation has been more certainly de- 
termined by the unanimous consent of posterity. The 
unusual length of her administration, and the strong fea- 
tures of her character, were able to overcome all preju- 
dices; and obliging her detractors to abate much of their 
invectives, and her admirers somewhat of their panegyrics, 
have at last, in spite of political factions, and, what is more, 
of religious animosities, produced a uniform judgment 
with regard to her conduct. Her vigor, her constancy, 
her magnanimity, her penetration, vigilance, and address, 
are allowed to merit the liighest praises, and appear not 
to have been surpassed by any person who ever filled a 
throne. A conduct less rigorous, less imperious, more 
sincere, more indulgent to her people, would have been 
requisite to form a perfect character. By the force of her 
mind, she controlled all her more active and stronger qua- 
lities, and prevented them from running into excess. Her 
heroism was exempted from all temerity, her frugality from 
avarice, her friendship from partiality, her enterprise from 
turbulency, and a vain ambition. She guarded not herself 
with equal care, or equal success, from less infirmities ; the 
rivalship of beauty, the desire of admiration, the jealousy 
of love, and the sallies of anger. 

Her singular talents for government were founded 
equally on her temper, and on her capacity. Endowed 
with a great command over herself, she soon obtained an 
uncontrolled ascendant over the people; and while she 
merited all their esteem, by her real virtues, she also en- 
gaged their affections, by her pretended ones. 



162 BIOGRAPHICAL EXTRACTS. 

Few sovereigns of England succeeded to the throne in 
more difficult circumstances ; and none ever conducted the 
government with such uniform success and felicity. Tho 
unacquainted with the practice of toleration, the true se- 
cret of managing religious factions, she preserved her 
people by her superior prudence, from those confusions, 
in which theological controversy had involved all the 
neighbouring nations. And, tho her enemies were the 
most powerful princes in Europe, the most active, the 
most enterprising, the least scrupulous, she was able, by 
her vigor, to make deep impressions on their state. Her 
own greatness, in the mean time, remained untouched and 
unimpaired. 

The wise ministers and brave warriors, who flourished 
during her reign, share the praise of her success; but in- 
stead of lessening the applause due to her, they make 
great addition to it. They all owed their advancement 
to her choice. They were supported by her constancy; 
and with all their ability, they were never able to acquire 
any undue ascendant over her. 

In her family, in her court, in her kingdom, she re- 
mained equally mistress. The force of the tender passions 
was great over her, but the force of her mind was still 
superior; and the combat, which her victory visibly cost 
her, serves only to display the firmness of her resolutions, 
and the loftiness of her ambitious sentiments. 

The fame of this princess, tho it has surmounted the 
prejudices both of faction and of bigotry, yet lies still ex- 
posed to another prejudice, which is more durable, be- 
cause more natural, and which, according to the different 
views in which we survey her, is capable either of exalting 
beyond measure, or diminishing the lustre of her character. 
This prejudice is founded in the consideration of her sex. 
When we contemplate her as a woman, we are apt to be 
struck with the highest admiration of her qualities and ex- 
tensive capacity; but we are also apt to require some more 
softness of disposition, some greater lenity of temper, some 
of those amiable weaknesses, by which her sex is distin- 
guished. But the true method of estimating her merit is, to 
lay aside all these considerations, and to consider her merely 
as a rational being, placed in authority, and intrusted with 
the government of mankind. We may find it difficult to 



BIOGRAPHICAL EXTRACTS. 163 

reconcile our fancy to her, as a mistress ; but her qualities 
as a sovereign, tho with some considerable exceptions, are 
the object of undisputed applause and admiration. Hume, 



The Character of Mary Queen of Scots. 
To all the charms of beauty, and the utmost elegance 
of external form, Mary added those accomplishments which 
render their impression irresistible. Polite, affable, insin- 
uating, sprightly, and capable of speaking and of writing 
with equal ease and dignity. Sudden, however, and vio- 
lent in all her attachments, because her heart was warm 
and unsuspicious. Impatient of contradiction, because she 
had been accustomed from her infancy to be treated as a 
queen. No stranger, on some occasions, to dissimulation; 
which, in that perfidious court where she received her 
education, was reckoned among the necessaiy arts of go- 
vernment. Not insensible of flattery, or unconscious of 
that pleasure, with which almost every woman beholds 
the influence of her own beauty. Formed with the qua- 
lities that Ave love, not with the talents that we admire; 
she was an agreeable woman rather than an illustrious 
queen. The vivacity of her spirit, not sufficiently tem- 
pered with sound judgment, and the warmth of her heart, 
which was not at all times under the restraint of discre- 
tion, betrayed her both into errors and into crimes. To 
say that she was always unfortunate, will not account for 
that long and almost uninterrupted succession of calami- 
ties which befel her; we must likewise add, that she was 
often imprudent. Her passion for Darnley was rash, 
youthful, and excessive. And tho the sudden transition 
to the opposite extreme was the natural effect of her ill- 
requited love, and of his ingratitude, insolence, and bru- 
tality; yet neither these, nor Bothwell's artful addresses 
and important services, can justify her attachments to that 
nobleman. Even the manners of the age, licentious as 
they were, are no apology for this unhappy passion; nor 
can they induce us to look on that tragical and infamous 
scene which followed it, with less abhorrence. Humanity 
will draw a veil over this part of her character, which it 
cannot approve, and may, perhaps, prompt some to im- 



164 BIOGRAPHICAL EXTRACTS, 

pute her actions to her situation, more than to her dispo- 
sition ; and to lament the unhappiness of the former, ra- 
ther than accuse the perverseness of the latter. Mary's 
sufferings exceed, both in degree and in duration, those 
tragical distresses which fancy has feigned to excite sor- 
row and commiseration ; and while we survey them, we 
are apt altogether to forget her frailties, we think of her 
faults with less indignation, and approve of our tears, as 
if they were shed for a person who had attained much 
nearer to pure virtue. No man, says Brantome, ever be- 
held her person without admiration and love, or will read 
her history without sorrow. Robertson. 



The Character of Hannibal. 
Hannibal being sent to Spain, on his arrival there at- 
tracted the eyes of the whole army. The veterans be- 
lieved Hamilcar was revived and restored to them : they 
saw the same vigorous countenance, the same piercing 
eye, the same complexion and features. But in a short 
time his behaviour occasioned this resemblance of his fa- 
ther to contribute the least towards his gaining their favor. 
And, in truth, never was there a genius more happily 
formed for two things, most manifestly contrary to each 
other — to obey and to command. This made it difficult 
to determine, whether the general or soldiers loved him 
most. Where any enterprise required vigor and valor in 
the performance, Asdrubal always chose him to command 
at the executing of it; nor were the troops ever more con- 
fident of success, or more intrepid, than when he was at 
their head. None ever showed greater bravery in under- 
taking hazardous attempts, or more presence of mind and 
conduct in the execution of them. No hardship could 
fatigue his body, or daunt his courage: he could equally 
bear cold and heat. The necessary refection of nature, 
not the pleasure of his palate, he solely regarded in his 
meals. He made no distinction of day and night in his 
watching, or taking rest; and appropriated no time to 
sleep, but what remained after he had completed his duty; 
he never sought for a soft, or a retired place of repose; 
but was often seen lying on the bare ground, wrapt in a 



BIOGRAPHICAL EXTRACTS. 165 

soldier's cloak, amongst the sentinels and guards. He 
did not distinguish himself from his companions by the 
magnificence of his dress, but by the quality of his horse 
and arms. At the same time, he was by far the best foot 
and horse soldier in the army; ever the foremost in a 
charge, and the last who left the field after the battle was 
begun. These shining qualities were however balanced 
by great vices; inhuman cruelty; more than Carthaginian 
treachery; no respect for truth or honor, no fear of the 
gods, no regard for the sanctity of oaths, no sense of reli- 
gion. With a disposition thus chequered with virtues and 
vices, he served three years under Asdrubal, without ne- 
glecting to pry into, or perform any thing, that could con- 
tribute to make him hereafter a complete general. Livy* 



The Character of Cato. 
If we consider the character of Cato without prejudice, 
he was certainly a great and worthy man; a friend to 
truth, virtue, liberty ; yet, falsely measuring all duty by 
the absurd rigor of the stoical rule, he was generally dis- 
appointed of the end which he sought by it, the happiness 
both of his private and public life. In his private conduct 
he was severe, morose, inexorable ; banishing all the 
softer affections, as natural enemies to justice, and as sug- 
gesting false motives of acting, from favor, clemency, and 
compassion: in public affairs he was the same; had but 
one rule of policy, to adhere to what was right, without 
regard to time or circumstances, or even to a force that 
could control him; for, instead of managing the power of 
the great, so as to mitigate the ill, or extract any good 
from it, he was urging it always to acts of violence by a 
perpetual defiance ; so that, with the best intentions in the 
world, he often did great harm to the republic. This was 
his general behaviour; yet, from some particular facts, it 
appears that his strength of mind was not always impreg- 
nable, but had its weak places of pride, ambition, and 
party zeal; which, when managed and flattered to a cer- 
tain point, would betray him sometimes into measures 
contrary to his ordinary rule of right and truth. The last 
act of his life was agreeable to his nature and philosophy: 



166 BIOGRAPHICAL EXTRACTS, 

when he could no longer be what he had been ; or when 
the ills of life overbalanced the good, which, by the prin- 
ciples of his sect, was a just cause for dying; he put an 
end to his life with a spirit and resolution which would 
make one imagine, that he was glad to have found an oc- 
casion of dying in his proper character. On the whole, 
his life was rather admirable than amiable; fit to be 
praised, rather than imitated, Middleton. 



The Character of Julius Ccesar. 
Csesar was endowed with every great and noble quality, 
that could exalt human nature, and give a man the ascend- 
ant in society: formed to excel in peace, as well as in war; 
provident in counsel; fearless in action; and executing 
what he had resolved with amazing celerity; generous 
beyond measure to his friends; placable to his enemies; 
and for parts, learning, eloquence, scarce inferior to any 
man. His orations were admired for two qualities, which 
are seldom found together, strength and elegance ; Cicero 
ranks him among the greatest orators that Rome ever bred; 
and Quintilian says, that he spoke with the same force 
with which he fought; and if he had devoted himself to 
the bar, would have been the only man capable of rival- 
ling Cicero. Nor was he a master only of the politer arts ; 
but conversant also with the most abstruse and critical 
parts of learning; and, among other works which he pub- 
lished, addressed two books to Cicero, on the analogy of 
language, or the art of speaking and writing correctly. He 
was a most liberal patron of wit and learning, wheresoever 
they were found; and out of his love of those talents, 
would readily pardon those who had employed them 
against himself; rightly judging, that by making such 
men his friends, he should draw praises from the same 
fountain from which he had been aspersed. His capital 
passions were ambition, and love of pleasure; which he 
indulged in their turns to the greatest excess; yet the first 
was always predominant; to which he could easily sacri- 
fice all the charms of the second, and draw pleasure even 
from toils and dangers, when they ministered to his glory. 
For he thought Tyranny, as Cicero says, the greatest of 



BIOGRAPHICAL EXTRACTS.. 167 

goddesses; and had frequently in his mouth a verse of 
Euripides, which expressed the image of his soul, that if 
right and justice were ever to be violated, they were to 
be violated for the sake of reigning. This was the chief 
end and purpose of his life ; the scheme that he had formed 
from his early youth; so that, as Cato truly declared of 
him, he came with sobriety and meditation to the subver- 
sion of the republic. He used to say, that there were too 
things necessary, to acquire and to support power — sol- 
diers and money; which yet depended mutually upon each 
other; with money therefore he provided soldiers, and 
with soldiers extorted money; and was, of all men, the 
most rapacious in plundering both friends and foes ; sparing 
neither prince, nor state, nor temple, nor even private 
persons, who were known to possess any share of treasure. 
His great abilities would necessarily have made him one 
of the first citizens of Rome ; but disdaining the condition 
of a subject, he could never rest till he made himself a 
monarch. In acting this last part, his usual prudence 
seemed to fail him; as if the height to which he was 
mounted, had turned his head, and made him giddy: for, 
by a vain ostentation of his power, he destroyed the sta- 
bility of it: and as men shorten life by living too fast, so 
by an intemperance of reigning, he brought his reign to a 
violent end. Middleton. 



The Character of King Alfred. 
The merit of this prince, both in private and public life, 
may, with advantage, be set in opposition to that of any 
monarch or citizen which the annals of any nation or any 
age, can present to us. He seems indeed, to be the com- 
plete model of that perfect character, which, under the 
denomination of a sage or wise man, the philosophers have 
been fond of delineating, rather as a fiction of their ima- 
gination, than in hopes of ever seeing it reduced to prac- 
tice : so happily were all his virtues tempered together, so 
justly were they blended, and so powerfully did each pre- 
vent the other from exceeding its proper bounds! He 
knew how to conciliate the boldest enterprise with the 
coolest moderation; the most obstinate perseverance with 
the easiest flexibility; the most severe justice with the 



168 BIOGRAPHICAL EXTRACTS* 

greatest lenity; the most vigorous command with the 
greatest affability of deportment ; the highest capacity and 
inclination for science, with the most shining talents for 
action. His civil and military virtues are almost equally 
the objects of our admiration; excepting only that the 
former, being more rare among princes as well as more 
useful, seem chiefly to challenge our applause. Nature 
also, as if desirous that so bright a production of her skill 
should be set in the fairest light, had bestowed on him all 
bodily accomplishments: vigor of limbs, dignity of shape 
and air, and a pleasant, engaging, and open countenance. 
Fortune alone, by throwing him into that barbarous age, 
deprived him of historians worthy to transmit his fame to 
posterity; and we wish to see him delineated in more 
lively colors, and with more particular strokes, that we 
may at least perceive some of those small specks and 
blemishes, from which, as a man, it is impossible he could 
be entirely exempted. Hume. 



The Character of Mr. C. J. Fox. 
Mr Fox excelled all his contemporaries in the extent of 
his knowledge, in the clearness and distinctness of his 
views, in quickness of apprehension, in plain, practical, 
common sense, in the full, strong, and absolute possession 
of his subject. A measure was no sooner proposed, than 
he seemed to have an instantaneous and intuitive percep- 
tion of all its various bearings and consequences; of the 
manner in which it would operate on the different classes 
of society, on commerce or agriculture, on our domestic 
or foreign policy; of the difficulties attending its execu- 
tion; in a word, of all its practical results, and the com- 
parative advantages to be gained, either by adopting or 
rejecting it. He was intimately acquainted with the in- 
terests of the different parts of the community, with the 
minute andjCjpmplicated details of political economy, with 
our external relations, with the views, the resources, and 
the maxims of other states. He was master of all these 
facts and circumstances which it was necessary to know, 
in order to judge fairly, and determine wisely; and he 
knew them not loosely or lightly, but in number, weight, 



BIOGRAPHICAL EXTRACTS. 169 

and measure. He had also stored his memory by reading 
and general study, and improved his understanding by 
the lamp of history. He was well acquainted with the 
opinions and sentiments of the best authors, with the 
maxims of the most profound politicians, with the causes 
of the rise and fall of states, with the general passions of 
men, with the characters of different nations, and the laws 
and constitution of his own country. He was a man of 
a capacious, powerful, and highly cultivated intellect. No 
man could know more than he knew; no mans know- 
ledge could be more sound, more plain and useful; no 
man's knowledge could lie in more connected and tangi- 
ble masses ; no man could be more perfectly master of his 
ideas, could reason upon them more closely, or decide 
upon them more impartially. His mind was full, even to 
overflowing. He was so habitually conversant with the 
most intricate and comprehensive trains of thought, or 
such was the natural vigor and exuberance of his mind, 
that he seemed to recall them without any effort. His 
ideas quarreled for utterance. Instead of ever being at a 
loss for them, he was obliged rather to repress and rein them 
in, lest they should overwhelm and confound, instead of 
informing the understandings of his hearers. If to this we 
add the ardor and natural impetuosity of his mind, his 
quick sensibility, his eagerness in the defence of truth, 
and his impatience of every thing that looked like trick, 
or artifice, or affectation, we shall be able, in some mea- 
sure, to account for the character of his eloquence. His 
thoughts came crowding in too fast for the slow and me- 
chanical process of speech. What he saw in an instant, 
he could only express imperfectly, word by word, and 
sentence after sentence. He would, if he could, " have 
bared his swelling heart/' and laid open at once the rich 
treasures of knowledge with which his bosom was fraught. 
It is no wonder that this difference between the rapidity 
of his feelings, and the formal round-about method of 
communicating them, should produce some disorder in 
his frame ; that the throng of his ideas should try to over- 
leap the narrow boundaries which confined them, and tu- 
multuously break down their prison-doors, instead of 
waiting to be let out, one by one, and following patiently 
at due intervals, and with mock dignity, like poor depend- 
Q 



170 BIOGRAPHICAL EXTRACTS. 

ents, in the train of words : — that he should express him- 
self in hurried sentences, in involuntary exclamations, by 
vehement gestures, by sudden starts and bursts of passion. 
Every thing showed the agitation of his mind. His tongue 
faltered, his voice became almost suffocated, and his face 
was bathed in tears. He was lost in the magnitude of his 
subject. He reeled and staggered under the load of feel- 
ing which oppressed him. He rolled like the sea beaten 
by a tempest. It was his union of the zeal of the patriot 
with the enlightened knowledge of the statesman, that 
gave to the eloquence of Fox its more than mortal energy; 
that warmed, expanded, penetrated every bosom. He 
relied on the force of truth and nature alone: the refine- 
ments of philosophy, the pomp and pageantry of the ima- 
gination were forgotten, or seemed light and frivolous; 
the fate of nations, the welfare of millions, hung suspended 
as he spoke; a torrent of manly eloquence poured from 
his heart, bore down every thing in its course, and sur- 
prised into a momentary sense of human feeling the breath- 
ing corpses, the wire-moved puppets, the stuffed figures, 
the flexible machinery, the " deaf and dumb" things of a 
court. HazlitL 



The Character of the Earl of Chatham. 
His genius, like Burke's, burned brightest at the last. 
The spark of liberty, which had lain concealed and dor- 
mant, buried under the dirt and rubbish of state intrigue 
and vulgar faction, now met with congenial matter, and 
kindled up " a flame of sacred vehemence" in his breast. 
It burst forth with a fury and a splendor that might have 
awed the world, and made kings tremble. He spoke as 
a man should speak, because he felt as a man should feel, 
in such circumstances. He came forward as the advocate 
of liberty, as the defender of the rights of his fellow-citi- 
zens, as the enemy of tyranny, as the friend of his coun- 
try, and of mankind. He did not stand up to make a 
vain display of his talents, but to discharge a duty, to 
maintain that cause which lay nearest to his heart, to pre- 
serve the ark of the British constitution from every sacri- 
legious touch, as the high-priest of his calling, with a pious 
zeal. The feelings and the rights of Englishmen were 



BIOGRAPHICAL EXTRACTS. 171 

enshrined in his heart ; and with their united force braced 
every nerve, possessed every faculty, and communicated 
warmth and vital energy to every part of his being. The 
whole man moved under this impulse. He felt the cause 
of liberty as his own. He resented every injury done to 
her as an injury done to himself, and every attempt to de- 
fend it as an insult upon his understanding. He did not 
stay to dispute about words, about nice distinctions, about 
trifling forms. He laughed at the little attempts of little 
retailers of logic to entangle him in senseless argument. 
He did not come there as to a debating club, or law court, 
to start questions and hunt them down; to wind and un- 
wind the web of sophistry; to pick out the threads, and 
untie every knot with scrupulous exactness; to bandy 
logic with every pretender to a paradox; to examine, to 
sift evidence; to dissect a doubt and halve a scruple; to 
weigh folly and knavery in scales together, and see on 
which side the balance preponderated; to prove that li- 
berty, truth, virtue, and justice, were good things, or that 
slavery and corruption were bad things. He did not tiy 
to prove those truths which did not require any proof, but 
to make others feel them with the same force that he did; 
and to tear off the flimsy disguises with which the syco- 
phants of power attempted to cover them The business 

of an orator is not to convince, but persuade ; not to in- 
form, but to rouse the mind; to build upon the habitual 
prejudices of mankind (for reason of itself will do nothing), 
and to add feeling to prejudice, and action to feeling. 

Hazlitt. 



A Comparison of Burke with the Earl of Chatham. 

What has been said of Burke, is, I think, strictly true, 
that " he was the most eloquent man of his time: his 
wisdom was greater than his eloquence." The only pub- 
lic man that, in my opinion, can be put in any competi- 
tion with him, is Lord Chatham: and he moved in a 
sphere so very remote, that it is almost impossible to com- 
pare them. But though it would perhaps be difficult to 
determine which of them excelled most in his particular 
way, there is nothing in the world more easy than to point 
out in what their peculiar excellencies consisted. They 



172 BIOGRAPHICAL EXTRACTS. 

were in every respect the reverse of each other. Chatham's 
eloquence was popular; his wisdom was altogether plain 
and practical. Burke's eloquence was that of the poet; 
of the man of high and unbounded fancy: his wisdom was 
profound and contemplative. Chatham's eloquence was 
calculated to make men act: Burke's was calculated to 
make them think, Chatham could have roused the fury 
of a multitude, and wielded their physical energy as he 
pleased: Burke's eloquence carried conviction into the 
mind of the retired and lonely student, opened the re- 
cesses of the human breast, and lighted up the face of na- 
ture around him. Chatham supplied his hearers with 
motives to immediate action: Burke furnished them with 
reasons for action which might have little effect upon 
them at the time, but for which they would be the wiser 
and better all their lives after. In search, in originality, 
in variety of knowledge, in richness of invention, in depth 
and comprehension of mind, Burke had as much the ad- 
vantage of Lord Chatham, as he was excelled by him in 
plain common sense, in strong feeling, in steadiness of 
purpose, in vehemence, in warmth, in enthusiasm, and 
energy of mind. Burke was the man of genius, of fine 
sense, and subtle reasoning: Chatham was a man of clear 
understanding, of strong sense, and violent passions. 
Burke's mind was satisfied with speculation: Chatham's 
was essentially active; it could not rest without an object. 
The power which governed Burke's mind was his Ima- 
gination: that which gave its impetus to Chatham's was 
Will. The one was almost the creature of pure intellect, 
the other of physical temperament. Hazlitt, 



Kosciusko. 

" Hope for a season bade the world farewell, 
And freedom shrieked when Kosciusko fell." 

Campbell. 

The virtuous hero of Poland, Thaddeus Kosciusko, was 
born in Lithuania, and educated at Warsaw. When very 
young, he was informed that the Americans were prepar- 
ing to shake off the yoke of Britain. His ardent and 
generous mind caught with enthusiasm the opportunity 



BIOGRAPHICAL EXTRACTS. 173 

thus afforded for aspiring genius, and from that moment 
he became the devoted soldier of liberty. 

His rank in the American army afforded him no op- 
portunity greatly to distinguish himself. But he was re- 
marked throughout his service for all the qualities which 
adorned the human character. His heroic valor in the 
field, could only be equalled by his moderation and affa- 
bility in the walks of private life. He was idolized by the 
soldiers for his bravery, and beloved and respected by the 
officers for the goodness of his heart, and the great quali- 
ties of his mind. 

Contributing greatly by his exertions, to the establish- 
ment of the independence of America, he might have re- 
mained and shared the blessings it dispensed, under the 
protection of a chief who loved and honored him, and in 
the bosom of a people whose independence he had so 
bravely fought to achieve ; but Kosciusko had other views ; 
he had drank deep of the principles of the American re- 
volution, and he wished to procure the same advantages 
for his native country — for Poland, which had a claim to 
all his efforts, to all his services. 

That unhappy nation groaned under a complication of 
evils which has scarcely a parallel in history. The mass 
of the people were the abject slaves of the nobles; the 
nobles torn into factions, were alternately the instruments 
and the victims of their powerful and ambitious neigh- 
bours. By intrigue, corruption, and force, some of its 
fairest provinces had been separated from the republic; 
and the people, like beasts, transferred to foreign despots, 
who were again watching a favorable moment for a second 
dismemberment. To regenerate a people thus debased; 
to obtain for a country thus circumstanced, the blessings 
of liberty and independence ; was a work of as much dif- 
ficulty as danger. But to a mind like Kosciusko's, the 
difficulty and danger of an enterprise served but as stimu- 
lants to undertake it. 

The annals of these times give us no detailed account 
of the progress of Kosciusko in accomplishing his great 
work, from the period of his return from America, to the 
adoption of the New Constitution of Poland in 1791. 
This interval, however, of apparent inaction, was most 
usefully employed to illumine the mental darkness which 



174 BIOGRAPHICAL EXTRACTS, 

enveloped his countrymen. To stimulate the ignorant and 
bigotted peasantry with the hope of a future emancipation; 
to teach a proud but gallant nobility, that true glory is 
only to be found in the paths of duty and patriotism; in- 
terests the most opposed, prejudices the most stubborn, 
and habits the most inveterate, were reconciled, dissi- 
pated, and broken, by the ascendancy of his virtues and 
example. The storm which he had foreseen, and for 
which he had been preparing, at length burst upon Poland. 
A feeble and unpopular government bent before its fury, 
and submitted itself to the yoke of the Russian invader. 
But the nation disdained to follow its example; in their 
extremity, every eye was turned on the hero who had al- 
ready fought their battles; the sage who had enlightened 
them; and the patriot who had set the example of per- 
sonal sacrifices, to accomplish the emancipation of the 
people. 

Kosciusko made his first campaign as brigadier-general, 
under the orders of Prince John Poniatowski. In the se- 
cond, in 1794, he was appointed generalissimo of Poland, 
with unlimited powers, until the enemy should be driven 
from the country. 

Without funds, without magazines, without fortresses, 
Kosciusko maintained his army for nine months against 
forces infinitely superior. Poland then only existed in his 
camp. Devotedness made up for the want of resources, 
and courage supplied the deficiency of arms; for the ge- 
neral had imparted his noble character to all his soldiers. 
Like him, they knew no danger, they dreaded no fatigues, 
when the honor and liberty of Poland were depending; 
like him, they endeavored to lessen the sacrifices which 
were required of the inhabitants for national independ- 
ence; and their obedience to their venerated chief was the 
more praiseworthy as it was voluntary. He held his au- 
thority by no other tenure than that of his virtues. Guided 
by his talents, and led by his valor, his undisciplined and 
ill-armed militia charged with effect the veteran Russians 
and Prussians; the mailed cuirassiers of the great Fre- 
derick, for the first time, broke and fled before the cavalry 
of Poland. Hope filled the breasts of the patriots. After 
a long night, the dawn of an apparently glorious day broke 
upon Poland. But, to the discerning eye of Kosciusko, 



BIOGRAPHICAL EXTRACTS. 1/5 

the light which it shed was of that sickly and portentous 
appearance, which indicated a storm more dreadful than 
that which he had resisted. 

He prepared to meet it with firmness, but with means 
entirely inadequate. In addition to the advantages of 
numbers, of tactics, of discipline, and inexhaustible re- 
sources, the combined despots had secured a faction in 
the heart of Poland. The unequal straggle could not be 
long maintained, and the day at length came, which was 
to decide the fate of Poland and its hero. Heaven, for 
wise purposes, determined that it should be the last of 
Polish liberty. It was decided, indeed, before the battle 
commenced. The traitor Poniski, who covered with a 
detachment the advance of the Polish army, abandoned 
his position to the enemy, and retreated. 

Kosciusko was astonished, but not dismayed. The dis- 
position of his army would have done honor to Hannibal. 
The succeeding conflict was terrible. When the talents 
of the general could no longer direct the mingled mass of 
combatants, the arm of the warrior was brought to the aid 
of his soldiers. He performed prodigies of valor. The 
fabled prowess of Ajax, in defending the Grecian ships > 
was realized by the Polish hero. Nor was he badly se- 
conded by his troops. As long as his voice could guide, 
or his example fire their valor, they were irresistible. In 
this unequal contest Kosciusko was long seen, and finally 
lost to their view. He fell covered with wounds; and a 
Cossack was on the point of piercing one of the best 
hearts that ever warmed a virtuous bosom, when an officer 
intei*posed. " Suffer him to execute his purpose," said 
the bleeding hero; " I am the devoted soldier of my 
country, and will not survive its liberties." The name of 
Kosciusko struck to the heart of the Tartar, like that of 
Marius upon the Cjmbrian warrior. The uplifted weapon 
dropped from his hand. 

Kosciusko was conveyed to the dungeons of Peters- 
burgh; and, to the eternal disgrace of the Empress Ca- 
therine, she made him the object of her vengeance, when 
he could no longer be the object of her fears. But the 
Emperor Paul, on his accession to the throne, thought he 
could not giant the Polish nation a more acceptable favor, 
than to restore to liberty the hero whom they regretted. 



176 BIOGRAPHICAL EXTRACTS. 

He himself announced to General Kosciusko, that his 
captivity was at an end. He wished him to accept, more- 
over, a present of fifty thousand ducats of Holland; but 
the general refused it. Kosciusko preferred rather to de- 
pend for subsistence on the recompence to which his ser- 
vices in America had entitled him. 

With this humble fortune, obtained in so honorable a 
way, he lived for a while in the United States; then in 
France, near Fontainbleau, in the family of Zeltner; and 
lastly, in Switzerland. From that time he refused to take 
any part in the affairs of his country, for fear of endanger- 
ing the national tranquillity, the offers that were made to 
him being accompanied with no sufficient guarantee. 

Bonaparte often endeavoured to draw Kosciusko from 
his retirement, and once issued an address to the Poles in 
his name; but tho the virtuous general still loved his 
country, he knew well that its emancipation could not be 
achieved under such auspices. 

Tho an exile from his country* the Poles still considered 
themselves as Ms children; and presented with just pride 
to other nations, that model of the virtues of their coun- 
try, that man so pure and upright — so great at the head 
of an army, so modest in private life, so formidable to his 
enemies in battle, so humane and kind to the vanquished, 
and so zealous for the glory and independence of his 
country. 

In the invasion of France in 1814, some Polish regi- 
ments in the service of Russia, passed through the village 
where this exiled patriot then lived. Some pillaging of 
the inhabitants brought Kosciusko from his cottage. 
" When I was a Polish soldier," said he, addressing the 
plunderers, " the property of the peaceful citizen was re- 
spected." " And who art thou," said an officer, " who 
addresses us with a tone of authority?" " I am Koscius- 
ko." There was magic in the word. It ran from corps 
to corps. The march was suspended. They gathered 
round him, and gazed with astonishment and awe upon 
the mighty ruin he presented. " Could it indeed be their 
hero," whose fame was identified with that of their coun- 
try? A thousand interesting reflections burst upon their 
minds ; they remembered his patriotism, his devotion to 
liberty, his triumphs, and his glorious fall. Their iron 



BIOGRAPHICAL EXTRACTS. 177 

hearts were softened, and the tear of sensibility trickled 
down their weather-beaten faces. We can easily conceive 
what would be the feelings of the hero himself in such a 
scene. His great heart must have heaved with emotion, 
to find himself once more surrounded by the companions 
of his glory; and that he would have been upon the point 
of saying to them, 

" Behold your general come once more 
To lead you on to laurel' d victory, 
To fame, to freedom." 

The delusion could have lasted but for a moment. He 
was himself, alas! a miserable cripple; and, for them! 
they were no longer the soldiers of liberty, but the instru- 
ments of ambition and tyranny. Overwhelmed with grief 
at the reflection, he would retire to his cottage, to mourn 
afresh over the miseries of his country. 

Kosciusko died at Soleure, on the 15th of October* 
1817. A fall from his horse, by which he was dragged 
over a precipice not far from Vevay, was the cause of his 
death. A funeral service was celebrated in honor of him, 
in the church of St. Roche at Paris, which was honored 
with the most distinguished personages of every nation, 
then in the French capital. The name of Kosciusko be- 
longs to the civilized world, and his virtues to humanity. 
Poland laments in him a patriot whose life was consecrated 
to the cause of her liberty and independence. America 
includes him among her illustrious defenders. France and 
Switzerland admired him as the man of beneficence and 
virtue ; and Russia, by whom his country was conquered, 
never beheld a man more unshaken in his principles, or 
firmer in adversity. Anon* 



PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 



The Death of Christ 
The hour in which our Saviour fell was an hour of 
terror, as well as an hour of love. Offended by iniquity, 
the Most High had risen on his throne : his right hand, 
red with vengeance, was lifted up to strike; and when 
the sword descended on the head of his beloved Son, all 
nature trembled in dismay. " There was darkness over 
the land, the rocks were rent, the veil of the temple was 
divided in the midst, the earth quaked, the people smote 
upon their breasts and returned." These were the awful 
signs of wrath, and though that wrath be averted in mercy 
from the penitent, it is still reserved in all its horrors for 
the hardened worker of iniquity. For him " there re- 
maineth no more sacrifice for sin, but a certain fearful 
looking for of judgment, and of fiery indignation to devour 
the adversaries." Let the prospect of this indignation 
operate on our minds, and mingle its influence with the 
gentler and more attractive influence of love, that we may 
abstain from all iniquity, and " perfect holiness in the fear 
of the Lord." Finlayson, 



On the Evil of Infidel Writings. 
Let me request you to observe that serious responsi- 
bility, which men of literary eminence have often incurred, 
by directing their writings against the cause of religion 
and godliness. When Genius degrades itself into the 
auxiliary of scepticism and licentiousness ; and taking ad- 
vantage of the perpetuity which art has given to thought, 
is employed, not only in corrupting the present genera- 
tion, but in disseminating impurities for the thousands of 
future ages, an instrument of evil is then at work, almost 
as powerful as can be wrought by the enemy of human 
happiness; and which, in proportion to the effects arising 



PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY* 179 

from its operations, entails on the person who has success- 
fully used it, the corresponding measures of criminality. 
Think on the mischievous effects which may flow even 
from a single copy of a profane and immoral writing. 
Observe it when it has found its way into the bosom of a 
family, the members of which have been reared up in the 
faith of religion and in the love of virtue. It seizes on the 
attention of one of them. It is at first read secretly and by 
stealth. Its specious reasonings insinuate themselves into 
the understanding of its victim. Its polluting maxims 
leave an impression on his heart. Not at once are its ar- 
guments yielded to. Not at once are its guilty principles 
tolerated. The book may even be shut at times with the 
feeling of aversion and fear, at the daring conclusions to 
which it points. But it is again opened. Curiosity, per- 
haps, to know the extent of its wild inferences, may tempt 
to another, and to a third inspection, till the repeated 
perusal complete the ascendancy of its bold and bad spe- 
culations. Then, alas! how speedily those safeguards, 
which wisdom and affection equally had raised against the 
influence of vice, are overturned — how the mind swells 
with the proud and foolish thought of emancipation, from 
what are now named idle scruples and doting prejudices, — 
how the look of scorn is turned even on that kind instruc- 
tor, the lessons of whose parental experience had formerly 
been received in reverence, — how the modesty and piety 
of the youth " remembering his Creator," are supplanted 
by the arrogance and scofhngs of the disputatious and 
blustering infidel; and falling a prey to the men " who lie 
in wait to deceive," how zealously he becomes, in his own 
circle, the promoter of irreligion and libertinism! But 
shall these men themselves, — shall the well-gifted sceptics 
whose genius has been employed to promote, over the 
young and inexperienced, the ascendancy of evil princi- 
ples, — shall they escape responsibility for that long train 
of ills, the origin of which is traceable to their daring spe- 
culations? Say, if the hopes of families, if the glory of 
nations, which, as with the assassin's weapon they have 
slain, shall never be inquired after at their hands? There 
is blood in their hands. They have destroyed souls. 
" They have gone in the way of Cain," and shall they 
not be brought to account? Oh! could they themselves 



180 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 

bring back every copy of their profane and immoral writ- 
ings, and obtain a recital of all that has been achieved by 
each for the vitiation and wretchedness of mankind; the 
most volatile and cold-hearted among them might surely 
be disposed to seriousness, and might be induced to gaze 
on the extended ruin which has been wrought, as the in- 
cendiary would on the city which he had wantonly fired, 
when he beheld, smoking in one promiscuous and dark 
heap, the dwellings and the ashes of its inhabitants! If, 
however, he relent at the miserable sight, will he not con- 
demn himself? If pity be excited in him, would not the 
feelings be akin to self-reproach? Yes. The conviction 
must smite him, that he partakes deeply of other men's 
sins, and that he justly shares with them in their wo. 

Rev. Dr. Muir. 



On the Deluding Influence of the World. 

My brethren, the true source of all our delusion, is a 
false and deceitful security of life. Thousands pass their 
accounts around us, and we are not instructed; some are 
struck in our very arms — our parents, our children, our 
friends — and yet we stand as if we had shot into the earth 
an eternal root. Even the most sudden transitions from 
life to dust, produce but a momentary impression on the 
dust that breathes. No examples, however awful, sink 
into the heart. Every instant we see health, youth, beauty, 
titles, reputation, and fortune, disappear like a flash. Still 
do we pass gaily on, in the broad and flowery way, the 
same busy, thoughtless, and irreclaimable beings ; panting 
for every pleasure as before, thirsting for riches and pre- 
eminence, rushing on the melancholy ruins of one another, 
intriguing for the employments of those whose ashes are 
scarce cold, nay, often, I fear, keeping an eye on the very 
expiring, with the infamous view of seizing the earliest 
moment to solicit their spoils. 

Great God! as if the all-devouring tomb, instead of 
solemnly pronouncing on the vanity of all human pursuits, 
on the contrary, emitted sparks to rekindle all our attach- 
ment to a perishable world ! Let me suppose, my breth- 
ren, that the number of man s days were inscribed on his 
brow! Is it not clear, that an awful certainty of that nature 



PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 181 

must necessarily beget the most profound and operative 
reflection? Would it be possible to banish, even for a 
moment, the fatal term from his thoughts? The nearer 
he approached it, what an increase of alarm! what an in- 
crease of light on the folly of every thing but immortal 
good! Would all his views and aspirings be confined, as 
they now are, to the little span that intervenes between 
his cradle and his grave ; and care, and anxiety, and mi- 
serable agitation be his lot, merely to die overwhelmed 
with riches, and blazing with honors? 

No! wedded to this miserable scene of existence, our 
hopes are afloat to the last. The understanding, clear in 
every other point, casts not a ray on the nature of our 
condition, however desperate. Too frequently it happens, 
that every one around us at that awful moment, conspires 
to uphold this state of delusion. They shudder for us in 
their hearts, yet talk to us of recovery with their lips, 
from a principle of mistaken, or, to give it its proper 
name, of barbarous lenity. The most important of all truths 
is withheld, till it is of little use to impart it. The con- 
sequence is obvious. We are surprised, fatally surprised. 
Our eyes are only opened when they are ready to close 
for ever. Perhaps an instant of reflection to be made the 
most of; perhaps to be divided between the disposition of 
worldly affairs and the business of eternity ! An instant of 
reflection, just God! to bewail an entire life of disorder! 
to inspire faith the most lively, hope the most firm, love 
the most pure ! An instant of reflection, perhaps for a sin- 
ner whom vice may have infected to the very marrow of 
his bones, when reason is half eclipsed, and all the faculties 
palsied by the strong grasp of death ! Oh, my brethren, 
terrible is the fate of those, who are only roused from a 
long and criminal security, by the sword of his divine jus- 
tice already gleaming in their eyes. Remember, that if 
any truth in religion be more repeatedly pressed on us 
than another, it is this — that as we five, so shall we in- 
evitably die. Few of us, I am sure, but live in the inten- 
tion of throwing an interval of most serious reflection be- 
tween the world and the grave. But let me warn you on 
that point ; it is not given to man to bestow his heart and 
affection on the present scene, and recal them when he 
pleases. No; every hour will draw our chains closer. 
R 



182 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 

Those obstacles to better practice, which we find insuper- 
able at this moment, will be more insuperable as we go 
on. It is the property of years to give wide and immove- 
able root to all passions. The deeper the bed of the 
torrent, the more impossible to change its course. The 
older and more inveterate a wound, the more painful the 
remedy, and more desperate the cure. Kinvan. 



Infatuation of Mankind, with regard to the Things of 
Time. 

But if no danger is to be apprehended while the thunder 
of heaven rolls at a distance, believe me, when it collects 
over our heads, we may be fatally convinced, that a 
well-spent life is the only conductor that can avert the 
bolt. Let us reflect, that time waits for no man. Sleep- 
ing or waking, our days are on the wing. If we look to 
those that are past, they are but as a point. When I com- 
pare the present aspect of this city, with that which it 
exhibited within the short space of my own residence, 
what does the result present, but the most melancholy 
proof of human instability? New characters in every 
scene, new events, new principles, new passions, a new 
creation insensibly arisen from the ashes of the old ; which 
side soever I look, the ravage of death has nearly reno- 
vated all. Scarcely do we look around us in life, when 
our children are matured, and remind us of the grave ; the 
great feature of all nature, is rapidity of growth and 
declension. Ages are renewed, but the figure of the world 
passeth away. God only remains the same. The torrent 
that sweeps by, runs at the base of his immutability ; and 
he sees, with indignation, wretched mortals, as they pass 
along, insulting him by the visionary hope of sharing that 
attribute, which belongs to Him alone. 

It is to the incomprehensible oblivion of our mortality, 
that the world owes all its fascination. Observe for what 
man toils. Observe what it often costs him to become 
rich and great — dismal vicissitudes of hope and disap- 
pointment — often all that can degrade the dignity of his 
nature, and offend his God! Study the matter of the 
pedestal, and the instability of the statue — Scarce is it 



PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 183 

erected, — scarce presented to the stare of the multitude — 
when death, starting like a massy fragment from the sum- 
mit of a mountain, dashes the proud colossus into dust! 
Where, then, is the promised fruit of all his toil? Where 
the wretched and deluded being, who fondly promised 
himself that he had laid up much goods for many years? — 
Gone, my brethren, to his acconnt, a naked victim, trem- 
bling in the hands of the living God! Yes, my brethren, 
the final catastrophe of all human passions, is rapid as it 
is awful. Fancy yourselves on that bed from which you 
never shall arise, and the reflection will exhibit, like a true 
and faithful mirror, what shadows we are, and what 
shadows we pursue. Happy they who meet that great, 
inevitable transition, full of days! Unhappy they who 
meet it but to tremble and despair! Then it is that man 
learns wisdom, when too late; then it is that every thing 
will forsake him, but his virtues or his crimes. To him 
the world is past; dignities, honors, pleasure, glory; past 
like the cloud of the morning ! nor could all that the great 
globe inherits, afford him, at that tremendous hour, as 
much consolation, as the recollection of having given but 
one cup of cold water to a child of wretchedness, in the 
name of Christ Jesus ! Kirwan. 



The Poioer of Habit, a useful Principle to Man. 
Whatever action, either good or bad, has been done 
once, is done a second time with more ease, and with a 
better liking; and a frequent repetition heightens the ease 
and pleasure of the performance without limit. By virtue 
of this property of the mind, the having done any thing 
once becomes a motive to the doing of it again; the hav- 
ing done it twice is a double motive; and so many times 
the act is repeated, so many times the motive to the do- 
ing of it once more is multiplied. To this principle habit 
owes its wonderful force, of which it is usual to hear men 
complain, and of something external that enslaves the will. 
But the complaint in this, as in every instance in which 
man presumes to arraign the ways of Providence, is rash 
and unreasonable. The fault is in man himself, if a prin- 
ciple, implanted in him for his good, becomes, by negli- 



184 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 

gence and mismanagement, the instrument of his ruin. 
It is owing to this principle that every faculty of the un- 
derstanding, and every sentiment of the heart, is capable 
of being improved by exercise. It is the leading principle 
in the whole system of the human constitution, modifying 
both the physical qualities of the body, and the moral and 
intellectual endowments of the mind. We experience the 
use of it in every calling and condition of life. By this 
the sinews of the laborer are hardened by toil; by this 
the hand of the mechanic acquires its dexterity; to this 
we owe the amazing progress of the human mind in the 
politer arts and the abstruser sciences; and an engine 
which it is in our power to employ to nobler and more 
beneficial purposes. By the same principle, when the at- 
tention is turned to moral and religious subjects, the un- 
derstanding may gradually advance beyond any limit that 
may be assigned, in quickness of perception and truth of 
judgment; and the will to conform to the dictates of con- 
science and the decrees of reason will be gradually height- 
ened, to correspond in some due proportion with the 
growth of the intellect. " Lord, what is man, that thou 
art mindful of him; or the son of man, that thou so re- 
gardest him? Thou hast made him lower than the angels, 
to crown him with glory and honor." Destitute as he is 
of any original perfection, which is thy sole prerogative, 
who art alone in all thy qualities original, yet in the fac- 
ulties of which thou hast given him the free command 
and use, and in the power of habit which thou hast planted 
in the principles of his system, thou hast given him the 
capacity of infinite attainments. Weak and poor in his 
beginnings, what is the height of any creature's virtue, to 
which he has not the power, by a slow and gradual ascent 
to reach? The improvements which he shall make by the 
rigorous exertion of the powers he hath received from thee, 
thou permittest him to call his own, imputing to him the 
merit of the acquisitions which thou hast given him the 
ability to make. What, then, is the consummation of 
man's goodness but to co-operate with the benevolent 
purposes of his Maker, by forming the habit of his mind 
to a constant ambition of improvement, which, enlarging 
its appetite in proportion to the acquisitions already made, 
may correspond with the increase of his capacities in every 



PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY, 185 

period of an endless existence? And to what purposes 
but to excite this noble thirst of virtuous proficiency — to 
what purpose but to provide that the object of the appe- 
tite may never be exhausted by gradual attainment — hast 
thou imparted to thy creature's mind the idea of thine 
own attribute of perfect uncreated goodness ? 

But man, alas ! hath abused thy gifts ; and the things 
that should have been for his peace, are become to him 
an occasion of falling. Unmindful of the height of thy 
glory to which he might attain, he has set his affections 
upon earthly things* Horsley. 



Insignificance of this World. 

Tho the earth were to be burned up, tho the trumpet 
of its dissolution were sounded, tho yon sky were to pass 
away as a scroll, and every visible glory which the finger 
of the Divinity has inscribed on it, were extinguished for 
ever — an event, so awful to us, and to every world in our 
vicinity, by which so many suns would be extinguished, 
and so many varied scenes of life and population would 
rush into forgetfulness. — What is it in the high scale of 
the Almighty's workmanship? a mere shred, which, tho 
scattered into nothing, would leave the universe of God 
one entire scene of greatness and of majesty. Tho the 
earth and the heavens were to disappear, there are other 
worlds which roll afar; the light of other suns shines upon 
them ; and the sky which mantles them, is garnished with 
other stars. Is it presumption to say, that the moral 
world extends to these distant and unknown regions? 
that they are occupied with people? that the charities of 
home and of neighbourhood flourish there? that the praises 
of God are there lifted up, and his goodness rejoiced in? 
that there piety has its temples and its offerings? And 
the richness of the divine attributes is there felt and ad- 
mired by intelligent worshippers? 

And what is this world in the immensity which teems 
with them; and what are they who occupy it? The uni- 
verse at large would suffer as little in its splendor and va- 
riety by the destruction of cur planet, as the verdure and 
sublime magnitude of a forest would suffer by the fall of 



186 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 

a single leaf. The leaf quivers on the branch which sup- 
ports it. It lies at the mercy of the slightest accident. A 
breath of wind tears it from its stem, and it lights on the 
stream of water which passes underneath. In a moment 
of time, the life, which we know by the microscope it 
teems with, is extinguished ; and an occurrence so insigni- 
ficant in the eye of man, and on the scale of his observa- 
tion, carries in it to the myriads which people this little 
leaf, an event as terrible and as decisive as the destruction 
of a world. Now, on the grand scale of the universe, we 
the occupiers of this ball, which performs its little round 
among the suns and the systems that astronomy has un- 
folded — we may feel the same littleness and the same in- 
security. We differ from the leaf only in this circum- 
stance, that it would require the operation of greater 
elements, to destroy us. But these elements exist. The 
fire which rages within, may lift its devouring energy to 
the surface of our planet, and transform it into one wide 
and wasting volcano. The sudden formation of elastic 
matter in the bowels of the earth — and it lies within the 
agency of known substances to accomplish this — may ex- 
plode it into fragments. The exhalation of noxious air 
from below, may impart a virulence to the air that is a- 
round us; it may affect the delicate proportion of its in- 
gredients ; and the whole of animated nature may wither 
and die under the malignity of a tainted atmosphere. A 
blazing comet may cross this fated planet in its orbit, and 
realize all the terrors which superstition has conceived of 
it. We cannot anticipate with precision the consequences 
©f an event which every astronomer must know to lie 
within the limits of chance and probability. It may hurry 
our globe towards the sun — or drag it to the outer regions 
of the planetary system — or give it a new axis of revolu- 
tion — and the effect, which I shall simply announce, with- 
out explaining it, would be to change the place of the 
ocean, and bring another mighty flood upon our islands 
and continents. 

These are changes which may happen in a single in- 
stant of time, and against which nothing known in the 
present system of things provides us with any security. 
They might not annihilate the earth, but they would un- 
people it, and we who tread its surface with such firm and 



PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 187 

assured footsteps, are at the mercy of devouring elements, 
which, if let loose upon us by the hand of the Almighty, 
would spread solitude, and silence, and death, over the 
dominions of the world. 

Now, it is this littleness, and this insecurity, which 
make the protection of the Almighty so dear to us, and 
bring, with such emphasis to every pious bosom, the 
holy lessons of humility and gratitude. The God who 
sitteth above, and presides in high authority over all 
worlds, is mindful of man; and, tho at this moment his 
energy is felt in the remotest provinces of creation, we 
may feel the same security in his providence, as if we 
were the objects of his undivided care. 

It is not for us to bring our minds up to this mysterious 
agency. But such is the incomprehensible fact, that the 
same Being, whose eye is abroad over the whole universe, 
gives vegetation to every blade of grass, and motion to 
every particle of blood which circulates through the veins 
of the minutest animal; that, tho his mind takes into his 
comprehensive grasp, immensity and ail its wonders, I am 
as much known to him as if I were the single object of his 
attention; that he marks all my thoughts; that he gives 
birth to eveiy feeling and every movement within me; 
and that, with an exercise of power which I can neither 
desciibe nor comprehend, the same God who sits in the 
highest heaven, and reigns over the glories of the firma- 
ment, is at my right hand, to give me every breath which 
I draw, and every comfort which I enjoy. Chalmers. 



Christian Benevolence looks forward to Futurity. 
The man who considers the poor, will give his chief 
anxiety to the wants of their eternity. It must be evident 
to all of you, that this anxiety is little felt. I do not appeal for 
the evidence of this to the selfish part of mankind — there 
we are not to expect it. I go to those who are really 
benevolent — who have a wish to make others happy ; and 
it is a striking observation, how little the salvation of these 
others is the object of that benevolence which makes them 
so amiable. It will be found, that, in by far the greater 
number of instances, this principle is all consumed on the 



188 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 

accommodations of time and the necessities of the body. 
It is the meat which feeds them — the garment which 
covers them — the house which shelters them — the money 
which purchases all things; these, I say, are what form 
the chief topics of benevolent anxiety. Now, we do not 
mean to discourage this principle. We cannot afford it; 
there is too little of it ; and it forms too refreshing an ex- 
ception to that general selfishness which runs throughout 
the haunts of business and ambition, for us to say any 
thing against it. We are not cold blooded enough to re- 
fuse our delighted concurrence to an exertion so amiable 
in its principle, and so pleasing in the warm and comfort- 
able spectacle which it lays before us. The poor, 'tis true, 
ought never to forget, that it is to their own industry, and 
to the wisdom and economy of their own management, 
that they are to look for the elements of subsistence — that 
if idleness and prodigality shall lay hold of the mass of our 
population, no benevolence, however unbounded, can ever 
repair a mischief so irrecoverable — that if they will not 
labor for themselves, it is not in the power of the rich to 
create a sufficiency for them ; and that tho every heart 
were opened, and every purse emptied in the cause, it 
would absolutely go for nothing towards forming a well- 
fed, a well-lodged, or a well-conditioned peasantry. Still, 
however, there are cases which no foresight could prevent, 
and no industry could provide for — where the blow falls 
heavy and unexpected on some devoted son or daughter 
of misfortune, and where, tho thoughtlessness and folly 
may have had their share, benevolence, not very nice 
in its calculations, will feel the overpowering claim of 
actual, helpless, and imploring misery. Now, I again offer 
my cheerful testimony to such benevolence as this; I 
count it delightful to see it singling out its object, and 
sustaining it against the cruel pressure of age and of indi- 
gence ; and when I enter a cottage where I see a warmer 
fireside, or more substantial provision, than the visible 
means can account for, I say that the landscape, in all its 
summer glories, does not offer an object so gratifying, as 
when referred to the vicinity of the great man's house, 
and the people who live in it, I am told that I will find 
my explanation there. Kind and amiable people! your 
benevolence is most lovely in its display, but oh! it is 



PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 189 

perishable in its consequences. Does it never occur to 
you, that in a few years this favorite will die — that he 
will go to the place where neither cold nor hunger will 
reach him, but that a mighty interest remains, of which 
both of us may know the certainty, tho neither you nor I 
can calculate the extent. Your benevolence is too short — 
it does not shoot far enough ahead — it is like regaling a 
child with a sweetmeat or a toy, and then abandoning the 
happy unreflecting infant to exposure. You make the 
poor old man happy with your crumbs and your fragments, 
but he is an infant to the mighty range of infinite dura- 
tion; and will you leave the soul, which has this infinity 
to go through, to its chance? How comes it that the grave 
should throw so impenetrable a shroud over the realities 
of eternity? How comes it that heaven, and hell, and 
judgment, should be treated as so many nonentities, and 
that there should be as little real and operative sympathy 
felt for the soul, which lives for ever, as for the body after 
it is dead, or for the dust into which it moulders? Eter- 
nity is longer than time; the arithmetic, my brethren, is 
all on one side upon this question; and the wisdom which 
calculates, and guides itself by calculation, gives its weighty 
and respectable support to what may be called the bene- 
volence of faith. 

Now, if there be one employment more fitted than 
another to awaken this benevolence, it is the peculiar em- 
ployment of that Society* for which I am now pleading. 
I would have anticipated such benevolence from the sit- 
uation they occupy, and the information before the public 
bears testimony of the fact. The truth is, that the dis- 
eases of the body may be looked upon as so many outlets 
through which the soul finds its way to eternity. Now, it 
is at these outlets that the members of this Society have 
stationed themselves. This is the interesting point of 
survey at which they stand, and from which they com* 
mand a look of both worlds. They have placed them- 
selves in the avenues which lead from time to eternity, 
and they have often to witness the awful transition of a 
soul hovering at the entrance — struggling its way through 
the valley of the shadow of death, and at last breaking 



The Society for the Relief of the Destitute Sick. 



190 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 

loose from the confines of all that is visible. Do you think 
it likely that men, with such spectacles before them, will 
withstand the sense of eternity? No, my brethren, they 
cannot, they have not. Eternity, I rejoice to announce 
to you, is not forgotten by them; and with their care for 
the diseases of the body, they are neither blind nor indif- 
ferent to the fact, that the soul is diseased also. We know 
it well. There is an indolent and superficial theology, 
which turns its eyes from the danger, and feels no pressing 
call for the application of the remedy — which reposes 
more in its own vague and self-assumed conceptions of 
the mercy of God, than in the firm and consistent repre- 
sentations of the New Testament — which overlooks the 
existence of the disease altogether, and therefore feels no 
alarm, and exerts no urgency in the business — which, in 
the face of all the truths and all the severities that are ut- 
tered in the word of God, leaves the soul to its chance; 
or, in other words, by neglecting to administer every thing 
specific for the salvation of the soul, leaves it to perish. 

Chalmers. 



The Hatefulness of War. 
Apart altogether from the evils of war, let us just take 
a direct look at it, and see whether we can find its char- 
acter engraven on the aspect it bears to the eye of an at- 
tentive observer. The stoutest heart of this assembly 
would recoil, were he who owns it to behold the destruc- 
tion of a single individual by some deed of violence. 
Were the man who at this moment stands before you in 
the full play and energy of health, to be in another moment 
laid by some deadly aim a lifeless corpse at your feet, there 
is not one of you who would not prove how strong are 
the relentings of nature at a spectacle so hideous as death. 
There are some of you who would be haunted for whole 
days by the image of horror you had witnessed, — who 
would feel the weight of a most oppressive sensation upon 
your heart, which nothing but time could wear away,—- . 
who would be so pursued by it as to be unfit for business 
or for enjoyment, — who would think of it through the day, 
and it would spread a gloomy disquietude over your wak- 
ing moments, — who would dream of it at night, and it 



PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 191 

would turn that bed which you courted as a retreat from 
the torments of an ever-meddling memory, into a scene 
of restlessness. 

But generally the death of violence is not instantaneous, 
and there is often a sad and dreary interval between its 
final consummation, and the infliction of the blow which 
causes it. The winged messenger of destruction has not 
found its direct avenue to that spot, where the principle 
of life is situated; and the soul, finding obstacles to its 
immediate egress, has to struggle it for hours ere it can 
make its dreary way through the winding avenues of that 
tenement, which has been torn open by a brother s hand. 
O ! my brethren, if there be something appalling in the 
suddenness of death, think not that, when gradual in its 
advances, you will alleviate the horrors of this sickening 
contemplation by viewing it in a milder form. O ! tell 
me, if there be any relentings of pity in your bosom, how 
could you endure it, to behold the agonies of the dying 
man, — as, goaded by pain, he grasps the cold ground in 
convulsive energy, or faint with the loss of blood, his pulse 
ebbs low, and the gathering paleness spreads itself over 
his countenance, — or wrapping himself round in despair, 
he can only mark, by a few feeble quiverings, that life still 
lurks and lingers in his lacerated body, — or lifting up a 
faded eye, he casts on you a look of imploring helplessness, 
for that succour, which no sympathy can yield him? It 
may be painful to dwell on such a representation, — but 
this is the way in which the cause of humanity is served. 
The eye of the sentimentalist turns away from its suffer- 
ings, and he passes by on the other side, lest he hear that 
pleading voice which is armed with a tone of remonstrance 
so vigorous as to disturb him. He cannot bear thus to 
pause, in imagination, on the distressing picture of one 
individual; but multiply it ten thousand times, — say, how 
much of all this distress has been heaped together on a 
single field, — give us the arithmetic of this accumulated 
wretchedness, and lay it before us with all the accuracy 
of an official computation, — and, strange to tell, not one 
sigh is lifted up among the crowd of eager listeners, as 
they stand on tiptoe, and catch every syllable of utterance 
which is read to them out of the registers of death. O ! 
say, what mystic spell is that which so blinds us to the 



192 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 

sufferings of our brethren, — which deafens to our ear the 
voice of bleeding humanity, when it is aggravated by the 
shriek of dying thousands, — which makes the very mag- 
nitude of the slaughter throw a softening disguise over its 
cruelties and its horrors, — which causes us to eye with 
indifference the field that is crowded with the most re- 
volting abominations, and arrests that sigh, which each 
individual would singly have drawn from us, by the re- 
port of the many who have fallen, and breathed their last 
in agony, along with him? 

I have no time, and assuredly as little taste, for expa- 
tiating on a topic so melancholy; nor can I afford, at pre- 
sent, to set before you a vivid picture of the other miseries 
which war carries in its train, — how it desolates every 
country through which it rolls, and spreads violation and 
alarm among its villages, — how, at its approach, every 
home pours forth its trembling fugitives, — how all the 
rights of property, and all the provisions of justice, must 
give way before its devouring exactions, — how, when 
Sabbath comes, no Sabbath charm comes along with it, — 
and for the sound of the church-bell, which wont to spread 
its music over some fine landscape of nature, and summon 
rustic worshippers to the house of prayer, nothing is heard 
but the deathful volleys of the battle, and the maddening 
outcry of infuriated men, — how, as the fruit of victory, an 
unprincipled licentiousness, which no discipline can re- 
strain, is suffered to walk at large among the people,- — 
and all that is pure, and reverend, and holy in the virtue 
of families, is cruelly trampled on, and held in the bitterest 
derision. Oh! my brethren, were we to pursue those 
details, which no pen ever attempts, and no chronicle 
perpetuates, we should be tempted to ask, what that is 
which civilization has done for the character of the spe- 
cies? It has thrown a few paltry embellishments over 
the surface of human affairs; and for the order of society, 
it has reared the defence of law around the rights and the 
property of the individuals who compose it. 

But let war, legalize it as you may, and ushered into 
the field with all its parade of forms and manifestoes, — 
let this war only have its season, and be suffered to over- 
look those artificial defences, and you will soon see how 
much of the security of the commonwealth is due to po- 



PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 193 

sitive restriction, and how little of it is due to the natural 
sense of justice among men. I know well, that the plau- 
sibilities of human character, which abound in every mo- 
dern and enlightened society, have been mustered up to 
oppose the doctrine of the Bible on the woful depravity 
of our race. But out of the history of war I can gather 
for this doctrine the evidence of experiment. It tells me, 
that man, when left to himself, and let loose among his 
fellows, to walk after the counsel of his own heart, and in 
the sight of his own eyes, will soon discover how thin that 
tinsel is which the boasted hand of civilization has thrown 
over him. Chalmers* 



On the Death of Christ. 

The Redemption of man is one of the most glorious 
works of the Almighty. If the hour of the creation of the 
world was great and illustrious; that hour, when, from 
the dark and formless mass, this fair system of nature arose 
at the divine command; when " the morning stars sang 
together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy:" — No 
less illustrious the hour of the restoration of the world, — 
the hour, when, from condemnation and misery, it emerged 
into happiness and peace. With less external majesty it 
was attended, but is, on that account, the more wonderful, 
that under an appearance so simple, such great events 
were covered. 

In the hour of Christ's death, the long series of pro- 
phecies, visions, types, and figures, was accomplished. 
This was the centre in which they all met; this the point 
towards which they had tended and verged, throughout 
the course of so many generations. You behold the Law 
and the Prophets standing, if we may so speak, at the 
foot of the cross, and doing homage. You behold Moses 
and Aaron bearing the ark of the covenant; David and 
Elijah presenting the oracle of testimony. You behold 
all the priests and sacrifices, all the rites and ordinances, 
all the types and symbols, assembled together to receive 
their consummation. Without the death of Christ, the 
worship and ceremonies of the law would have remained 
a pompous, but unmeaning institution. In the hour when 
he was crucified, " the book with the seven seals" was 



194 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 

opened. Every rite assumed its significancy; every pre- 
diction met its event; every symbol displayed its corre- 
spondence. 

This was the hour of the abolition of the Law, and the 
introduction of the Gospel: the hour of terminating the 
old, and of beginning the new dispensation of religious 
knowledge and worship throughout the earth. — Viewed 
in this light, it forms the most august era which is to be 
found in the history of mankind. When Christ was suf- 
fering on the cross, we are informed by one of the Evan- 
gelists, that he said, " I thirst;" and that they filled a 
spunge with vinegar, and put it into his mouth. " After 
he had tasted the vinegar," knowing that all things were 
now accomplished, and the scripture fulfilled, he said, 
" It is finished;" that is, the offered draught of vinegar 
was the last circumstance predicted by an ancient prophet 
that remained to be fulfilled. The vision and the pro- 
phecy are now sealed : The Mosaic dispensation is closed. 
" And he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost." — Sig- 
nificantly was the veil of the temple rent in this hour; for 
the glory then departed from between the cherubim. The 
legal high-priest delivered up his Urim and Thummim, 
his breast-plate, his robes, and his incense; and Christ 
stood forth as the great high-priest of all succeeding gen- 
erations. By that one sacrifice which he now offered, he 
abolished sacrifices forever. Altars, on which the fire had 
blazed for ages, were now to smoke no more. Victims 
were no more to bleed. " Not with the blood of bulls 
and goats, but with his own blood, he now entered into 
the Holy Place, there to appear in the presence of God 
for us. 

This was the hour of association and union to all the 
worshippers of God. When Christ said, " It is finished," 
he threw down the wall of partition which had so long 
divided the Gentile from the Jew. He gathered into one, 
all the faithful, out of every kindred and people. He pro- 
claimed the hour to be come, when the knowledge of the 
true God should be no longer confined to one nation, nor 
his worship to one temple; but over all the earth, the 
worshippers of the Father should serve him " in spirit and 
in truth." From that hour, they who dwelt in the " ut- 
termost ends of the earth, strangers to the covenant of 



PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 195 

promise," began to be "brought nigh." In that hour, 
the light of the gospel dawned from afar on the British 
islands. 

This was the hour of Christ's triumph over all the 
powers of darkness ; the hour in which he overthrew do- 
minions and thrones, " led captivity captive, and gave 
gifts unto men." The contest which the kingdom of 
darkness had long maintained against the kingdom of light 
was now brought to its crisis. The period was come, 
when " the seed of the woman should bruise the head of 
the serpent." For many ages, the most gross superstition 
had filled the earth. " The glory of the incorruptible 
God was," every where, except in the land of Judea, 
" changed into images made like to corruptible man, and 
to birds, and beasts, and creeping things." The world, 
which the Almighty created for himself, seemed to have 
become a temple of idols. Even to vices and passions 
altars were raised ; and what was entitled Religion, was, in 
effect, a discipline of impurity. In the midst of this uni- 
versal darkness, Satan had erected his throne; and the 
learned and polished, as well as the savage nations, bowed 
down before him. But at the hour when Christ appeared 
on the cross, the signal of his defeat was given. His 
kingdom suddenly departed from him ; the reign of idolatry 
passed away: He was " beheld to fall like lightning from 
heaven." In that hour, the foundation of every Pagan 
temple shook; the statue of every false god tottered on its 
base ; the priest fled from his falling shrine ; and the heathen 
oracles became dumb for ever. 

Death also, the last foe of man, was the victim of this 
hour. The formidable appearance of the spectre remained, 
but his dart was taken away: for in the hour when 
Christ expiated guilt, he disarmed death, by securing the 
resurrection of the just. When he said to his penitent 
fellow-sufferer, " To-day thou shalt be with me in para- 
dise," he announced to all his followers the certainty of 
heavenly bliss. He declared "the cherubim" to be dis- 
missed, and the " flaming sword" to be sheathed, which 
had been appointed at the fall " to keep from man the 
way of the tree of life." Faint, before this period, had 
been the hope, indistinct the prospect, which even good 
men enjoyed of the heavenly kingdom. " Life and immor- 



196 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 

tality were now brought to light." From the hill of Cal- 
vary, the first clear and certain view was given to the 
world of the everlasting mansions. Since that hour, they 
have been the perpetual consolation of believers in Christ. 
Under trouble, they soothe their minds : amidst temptation, 
they support their virtue; and in their dying moments, 
enable them to say, " O death! where is thy sting? O 
grave! where is thy victory?" Blair. 



Infidelity. 

We have heard, indeed, of men who affected to hold 
fast by the tenets of natural religion, while they repudi- 
ated those of divine revelation; but we have never been so 
fortunate as to see and converse with one of them whose 
creed, select, and circumscribed, and palatable as he has 
made it, seemed to have any serious footing in his mind, 
or any practical influence on his life; who could restrain 
his sneer at piety the most untinctured with enthusiasm; 
or who could check his speculations, however hostile to 
that system he had affected to embrace, or who worship- 
ped the God in whose existence and attributes he acknow- 
ledged his belief, or who acted with a view to that im- 
mortality, for which he allowed that the soul of man is 
destined. 

It is true, the votaries of infidelity are often placed in 
circumstances which constrain them to hold such language, 
and maintain such a deportment, as by itself might indicate 
the presence of Christian principle. They are frequently 
not at liberty to give that full play, and that unreserved 
publicity to their unbelief, in which, however, it is natu- 
rally disposed to indulge, and in which it would undoubt- 
edly manifest itself, were it free to operate at large. And 
you may not therefore, at particular times, and in par- 
ticular situations, perceive any marked distinction between 
them and the devoted followers of Jesus of Nazareth. 
They may find it prejudicial to their worldly interest, or 
to their good name, to make an open avowal of any ap- 
proach, however distant, to the confines of atheism. They 
may have a family, and in the tenderness of parental af- 
fection, and with the conviction that what they regard as 



PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 197 

altogether false, may contribute as much to the virtue and 
happiness of their children as if it were altogether time, 
thev mav shrink from any declaration of infidelity within 
thedomestic circle. They may acknowledge, in the season 
of their own distress, or they may suggest, amid the dis- 
tresses of their friends, those considerations on which the 
mind, when softened, or when agitated by affliction, na- 
turally clings, even tho it has no habitual conviction of the 
truth, and no proper title to the consolation which they 
afford : They may be driven by bodily anguish, or by im- 
pending danger, to utter the language of a piety, which 
till that moment was a stranger even to their lips, just as 
the mariner has been known, amidst the perils and horrors 
of a shipwreck, to cry for mercy from that God whose 
existence he had never before confessed, but by his pro- 
faneness and his blasphemies. Or they may even be 
strongly and insensibly induced to accommodate them- 
selves to prevailing customs, and to pay an outward ho- 
mage to the faith of the New Testament, by occasionally 
attending its institutions, tho they are all the while regard- 
ing it as a mere harmless fable, if not as a contemptible or 
a pernicious superstition. But look at them when placed 
in those circumstances which put no such restraints upon 
what they may say and do as the enemies of Christianity; 
observe them when the pride of intellect tempts them to 
display their learning or their ingenuity in contending 
against the vulgar faith — or when they have nothing to 
fear from giving utterance to what they think and feel — 
or when they happen to be associated with those among 
whom the quality of free-thinking prevails — observe them 
as to the language which they employ, and the practice 
which they maintain with respect to religion, in the or- 
dinary course and tenor of then* lives, and then say what 
positive proofs they give you of the reality or of the effi- 
cacy of those religious principles which they profess to 
have retained, after putting away from them the doctrine 
of Christ. Say, if instead of affording you positive proofs 
of such remanent and distinctive piety, they are not dis- 
playing daily and inveterate symptoms that God, and Pro- 
vidence, and immortality, are not in all their thoughts. 
Say, if you have not seen many a melancholy demonstra- 
tion of that general irreligion which we have ascribed to 



198 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 

them as the consequence of their throwing off the dominion 
of the Gospel. And say, if you have not been able to trace 
this down through all the gradations of infidelity, from the 
speculative philosopher, who has decided that there is no 
Saviour, till you come to the fool, who says, in the weak- 
ness and the wickedness of his heart, there is no God. 

Andrew Thomson. 



On the same subject 
It is amidst trials and sorrows that infidelity appears 
in its justest and most frightful aspect. When subjected 
to the multifarious ills which flesh is heir to, what is there 
to uphold our spirit, but the discoveries, and the prospects 
that are unfolded to us by revelation? What, for this 
purpose, can be compared with the belief that every thing 
here below is under the management of infinite wisdom 
and goodness, and that there is an immortality of bliss 
awaiting us in another world? If this conviction be taken 
away, what is it that we can have recourse to, on which 
the mind may patiently and safely repose in the season of 
adversity? Where is the balm which I may apply with 
effect to my wounded heart, after I have rejected the aid 
of the Almighty Physician? Impose upon me whatever 
hardships you please; give me nothing but the bread of 
soitow to eat; take from me the friends in whom I had 
placed my confidence ; lay me in the cold hut of poverty, 
and on the thorny bed of disease ; set death before me in 
all its terrors; do all this,— -only let me trust in my Savi- 
our, and " pillow my head on the bosom of Omnipotence ;" 
and I will " fear no evil," — I will rise superior to afflic- 
tion, — I will " rejoice in my tribulation." But let infidelity 
interpose between God and my soul, and draw its im- 
penetrable veil over a future state of existence, and limit 
all my trust to the creatures of a day, and all my expec- 
tations to a few years, as uncertain as they are short, and 
how shall I bear up, with fortitude or with cheerfulness, 
under the burden of distress? Or where shall I find 
one drop of consolation to put into the bitter draught 
which has been given me to drink? I look over the 
whole range of this wilderness in which I dwell, but I see 
not one covert from the storm, nor one leaf for the healing 



PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 199 

of my soul, nor one cup of cold water to refresh me in the 
weariness and the faintings of my pilgrimage. The very 
conduct of infidels, in spreading their system with so 
much eagerness and industry, affords a striking proof that 
its influence is essentially hostile to human happiness. 
For what is their conduct? Why, they allow that re- 
ligion contributes largely to the comfort of man — that in 
this respect, as well as with respect to morality, it would 
he a great evil, were it to lose its hold over their affec- 
tions, — and that those are no friends to the world, who 
would shake or destroy their belief in it. And yet, in the 
very face of this acknowledgment, they scruple not to 
publish their doubts and their unbelief concerning it 
among their fellow men, and with all the cool delibera- 
tion of philosophy, and sometimes, with all the keenness 
and ardor of a zealot, to do the very thing which they 
profess to deprecate as pernicious to the well-being and 
comfort of the species. Whether they are sincere in this 
profession, or whether they are only trifling with the sense 
and feeling of mankind, still it demonstrates the harden- 
ing influence of their principles; and from principles, 
which make those who hold them so reckless of the peace, 
and order, and happiness of their brethren, what can be 
reasonably expected, but every thing which is most de- 
structive of human comfort? 

It is true, the infidel may be very humane in the inter- 
course of life; but, after all, what dependance can be 
placed upon that humanity of his, which deals out bread 
to the hungry, and clothing to the naked, and yet would 
sacrifice to literary vanity, or to something worse, what- 
ever can give support to trial, and consolation at death? 
He may sympathise with me in my distress, and speak 
of immortality, and at the very moment his constitutional 
kindness may be triumphing over his cold-blooded and 
gloomy speculations. But his speculations have shed a 
misery over my heart, which no language of his can dis- 
sipate, and which makes his most affectionate words sound 
in my ear like the words of mockery and scorn. He has 
destroyed me, and he cannot save me, and he cannot 
comfort me. At his bidding I have renounced that Savi- 
our in whom I once trusted and was happy, and have 
banished that Comforter, who once dwelt with me, and 



200 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 

would have dwelt with me as a comforter for ever. And 
he now pities me, as if his most pitying tones could charm 
away the anguish of my bosom, and make me forget that 
it was he himself who planted it there, and planted it so 
deep, and nourished it so well, that nothing but the power 
of that heaven, whose power I have denied, is able to 
pluck it out. Yes, after he has destroyed my belief in 
the superintending providence of God, — after he has 
taught me that the prospect of a hereafter is but the base- 
less fabric of a vision, — after he has bred and nourished 
in me a contempt for that sacred volume which alone 
throws light over this benighted world, — after having 
argued me out of my faith by his sophistries, or laughed 
me out of it by his ridicule, after having thus so wrung 
from my soul every drop of consolation, and dried up my 
very spirit within me, — yes, after having accomplished 
this in the season of my health and my prosperity, he 
would come to me while I mourn, and treat me like a 
drivelling idiot, whom he may sport with, because he has 
ruined me, and, to whom, in the plenitude of his compas- 
sion, — too late, and too unavailing, — he may talk of truths 
in which he himself does not believe, and which he has 
long exhorted me, and has at last persuaded me, to cast 
away as the dreams and the delusions of human folly! — 
From such comforters may heaven preserve me! "My 
soul come not thou into their secrets. Unto their assem- 
bly mine honor be not thou united ! " Andrew Thomson* 



Appeal in favour of the Heathen Nations. — Character 
of Scotsmen. 
Would that I may have conveyed any due sense of the 
necessities of the heathen nations, or of your obligations 
to help them! When we cast our eyes over those wide, 
unreclaimed regions of moral desolation, which an un- 
known God has, for so many ages, visited in the terrors 
of his power, and cherished in the relentings of his provi- 
dence, how sad and appalling the aspect of the past ! What 
ruin do we behold in the noblest work of God! What 
waste of intellect, what perversion of energy, what pitiable 
depravation of affection, what unrelenting tyranny of 



PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 201 

error! Like the despotic elements of nature broke loose 
from their office of ministering to the health and solace of 
mankind, the moral energies of man seem there to emulate 
the operations of the earthquake and the whirlwind, and 
to aim only at confounding order, and perpetuating 
wretchedness. Yet, are they not men of like natures 
with ourselves, partakers of all our passions, affections, 
sympathies? What have we attained to, that they might 
not have surpassed us in, if it had been given them to 
share in our advantages? To what depth of degradation 
have they fallen, that might not have been our condition, 
had we, like them, been, as it were, forgotten of God, the 
outlaws of his dominion? They might have been our 
benefactors, had God willed it; and, more faithful to their 
privileges and to the claims of brotherhood than we have 
been, might have sent us their apostles, their ministers of 
reconciliation, their ambassadors of peace. Under the 
6tarless sky of their unbroken night, lie buried the ele- 
ments of all that is great and exalted in our common 
nature — the materials whence the Divine Illuminator can 
elicit sparks of heavenly fire — the instruments he can 
harmonise to the touch of holy love — the souls he can 
form anew into heirs of God and immortality. Have they 
not, through their long series of thickly-peopled and 
quickly-passing generations, fallen where they rose — like 
those majestic but unprofitable forests which nature, pro- 
digal of strength, and wasteful of beauty, scatters over 
the mountains of her untracked continents, their gloomy 
shade unpenetrated by the luminary of day that gladdens 
happier vales? Time only has approached them in his 
undeviating progress, not with project of change, but in 
the fulfilment of destiny; closing in the unblessed exist- 
ence of one fading race, as often as another was ready to 
replace it. And is the God of nature thus active and 
vigilant, and yet neglectful of his creatures? Does he 
not appeal to us? Does he not claim some gratitude of 
us for all his care? Having prepared the ample, prolific 
blessing of the gospel, he committed it, not to angels, but 
to men. Ah! when once his Holy Spirit shall begin to 
move on the face of those dark chaotic waters, how shall 
order spring out of confusion, and rays of light and glory 
return to us from the regions of darkness and the shadow 
of death! 



202 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 

And where might we more reasonably expect to find 
men accomplished for the work, and eager to engage in 
it, than in this part of our native isle, ever distinguished 
by the production of talent rather than of wealth; where 
Providence seems to have repaid, in moral advantages, all 
that has been withheld in the indulgences of nature? 
" Men are ripened in these northern climes," and every 
country becomes tributary to that which by skill and in- 
dustry know how to draw from the stores of all. Strangers 
to luxury, undaunted by danger, unsubdued by hardship, 
your countrymen are found wherever arts, agriculture, and 
commerce extend — contributing to the improvement, and 
sharing in the prosperity, of every civilized people under 
heaven. What country in the world scatters from a scanty 
population so numerous a train of hardy, intrepid adven- 
turers, who follow wherever gain or glory mark the way — 
braving all the extremities of climate, and every vicissitude 
of fortune? Nay, as if the accessible parts of the globe 
afforded too limited a sphere for enterprise, they embrace 
with eagerness every project for extending their bounda- 
ries. To the insatiable ardor, and indefatigable persever- 
ance of one of your countrymen, the Nile first disclosed 
its mysterious source. And who has yet forgotten, or re- 
members without the applauding sigh of deep regret, him* 
who but lately " ivent out from us, and we saw him not 
since;" never since, in the ardor of unconquerable hope, 
he promised not to return till he should have traced for 
us the pathless windings of that howling desert through 
which the Niger rolls his mighty unexplored stream! 
And even now, when hope seems to catch enthusiasm 
from danger, and many thoughts are suspended on a peril- 
ous enterprise,)- when the north bursts his icy fetters, un- 
locks the bars of his imprisoned seas, and breaks up the 
masses of his tremendous winter, the accumulation of cen- 
turies, — who are so ready as Scotsmen to dare the terrors 
of the arctic sky, and impel their adventurous prows be- 
twixt the floating fields and frost-reared precipices that 
guard the secrets of the pole? The world characterizes 
these as noble enterprises ; and we do not in this sentiment 



* Mungo Park. f Captain Parry's Expedition for the 

Discovery of a North -West Passage. 



PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 203 

dissent from the world: but while there are higher honors, 
and more blessed achievements, to which duty calls you 
to aspire, do not rest in a perishable name, nor be satis- 
fied to be the hearers only of sublunary blessings to your 
brethren of mankind. " It is more blessed to give, than 
to receive" — to inspire the hope of immortality, than to 
satisfy intellectual curiosity. Let all take their part in 
this divine work. If you can do but little; do that little 
in the spirit of faith and love, and it will be accepted. 

Henry Grey. 



Danger of Delay in Matters of Religion, 
By long delaying, your conversion may become alto- 
gether impossible. 

Habit, says the proverb, is a second nature ; and indeed 
it is stronger than the first. At first, we easily take the 
bend, and are moulded by the hands of the master; but 
this nature of our own making is proof against alteration. 
The Ethiopian may as soon change his skin, and the leo- 
pard his spots; the tormented in hell may as soon revisit 
the earth; as those who have been long accustomed to do 
evil, may learn to do well. Such is the wise appointment 
of Heaven, to deter sinners from delaying their repentance. 
When the evil principle hath corrupted the whole capacity 
of the mind; when sin, by its frequency and its duration, 
is woven into the very essence of the soul, and is become 
part of ourselves; when the sense of moral good and evil 
is almost totally extinct; when conscience is seared, as 
with a hot iron; when the heart is so hard, that the ar- 
rows of the Almighty cannot pierce it; and when, by a 
long course of crimes, we have become what the Scrip- 
ture most emphatically calls, " vessels of wrath fitted for 
destruction;" — then we have filled up the measure of our 
sins; then Almighty God swears in his wrath that we 
shall not enter into his rest; then there remaineth no more 
sacrifice for sin, but a fearful looking for of wrath, and in* 
dignation which shall devour the adversary. Almighty 
God, weary of bearing with the sins of men, delivers them 
over to a reprobate mind; when, like Pharaoh, they 
survive only as monuments of wrath; when, like Esau, 
they cannot find a place for repentance, although they 



204 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 

seek it carefully with tears; when, like the foolish virgins, 
they come knocking — but the door of mercy is shut for 
ever. 

Further, let me remind you, my brethren, that if you 
repent not now, perhaps you will not have another oppor- 
tunity. You say you will repent in some future period of 
time; but are you sure of arriving at that period of time? 
Have you one hour in your hand? Have you one minute 
at your disposal? Boast not thyself of to-morrow. Thou 
knowest not what a day may bring forth. Before to- 
morrow, multitudes shall be in another world. Art thou 
sure that thou art not of the number? Man knoweth not 
his time. As the fishes that are taken in an evil net, as 
the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of 
men snared in an evil hour. Can you recal to mind none 
of your companions, none of the partners of your follies 
and your sins, cut off in an unconverted state — cut off 
perhaps in the midst of an unfinished debauch, and hur- 
ried, with all their transgressions on their head, to give in 
their account to God the Judge of all? Could I show 
you the state in which they are now; could an angel from 
heaven unbar the gates of the everlasting prison; could 
you discern the late companions of your wanton hours, 
overwhelmed with torment and despair; could you hear 
the cry of their torment which ascendeth up for ever and 
ever; could you hear them upbraiding you as the partners 
of their crimes, and accusing you as in some measure the 
cause of their damnation! — Great God! how would your 
haii* stand on end! how would your heart die within 
you! how would conscience fix all her stings! and re- 
morse, awaking a new hell within you, torment you be- 
fore the time ! Had a like untimely fate snatched you 
away then, where had you been now? And is this the 
improvement which you make of that longer day of grace 
with which Heaven has been pleased to favor you? Is 
this the return you make to the Divine goodness, for pro- 
longing your lives, and indulging you with a longer day 
of repentance? Have you in good earnest determined 
within yourself, that you will weary out the long-suffering 
of God, and force destruction from his reluctant hand? 

I beseech, I implore you, my brethren, in the bonds of 
friendship, and in the bowels of the Lord; by the tender 



PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 205 

mercies of the God of Peace; by the dying love of a cru- 
cified Redeemer; by the precious promises and awful 
threatenings of the gospel; by all your hopes of heaven 
and fears of hell; by the worth of your immortal souls; 
and by all that is dear to men; I conjure you to accept of 
the offers of mercy, and fly from the wrath to come — 
" Behold now is the accepted time, behold now is the day 
of salvation." All the treasures of heaven are now open- 
ing to you; the blood of Christ is now speaking for the 
remission of your sins; the church on earth stretehes out 
its arms to receive you; the spirits of just men made per- 
fect are eager to enrol you amongst the number of the 
blessed; the angels and archangels are waiting to break 
out into new hallelujahs of joy on your return; the whole 
Trinity is now employed in your behalf; God the Father, 
God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, at this instant, 
call upon you, weary and heavy laden, to come unto them 
that ye may have rest unto your souls! Logan. 



Religion the distinguishing Quality of our Nature. 

Religion is the distinguishing quality of our nature, and 
is one of the strongest features that marks the human 
character. As it is our distinguishing quality, so it pos- 
sesses such extensive influence, that, however overlooked 
by superficial inquirers, it has given rise to more revolu- 
tions in human society, and to more changes in human 
manners, than any one cause whatever. View mankind in 
every situation, from the earliest state of barbarity, down 
through all the successive periods of civilization, till they 
degenerate to barbarity again, and you will find them in- 
fluenced strongly by the awe of superior spirits, or the 
dread of infernal fiends. In the heathen world, where 
mankind had no divine revelation, but followed the im- 
pulse of nature alone, religion was often the basis of the 
civil government. Among all classes of men, the sacri- 
fices, the ceremonies, and the worship of the gods were 
held in the highest reverence. Judge what a strong hold 
♦religion must have taken of the human heart, when, in- 
stigated by horror of conscience, the blinded wretch has 
submitted to torture his own flesh before the shrine of the 



206 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 

incensed deity, and the fond father has been driven to offer 
up with his own hands his first-born for his transgression, 
—the fruit of his body for the sin of his soul. It is pos- 
sible to shake off the reverence, but not the dread of a 
Deity. Amid the gay circle of his companions, in the 
hour of riot and dissipation, the fool may say in his heart 
that there is no God; but his conscience will meet him 
when he is alone, and tell him that he is a liar. Heaven 
will avenge its quarrel on his head. Judge, then, my 
brethren, how miserable it must be for a being made after 
the image of God, thus to have his glory turned into shame. 
How dismal must the situation be for a subject of the di- 
vine government to consider himself as acting upon a plan 
to counteract the decrees of God, to defeat the designs of 
eternal Providence, to deface in himself the image and the 
lineaments of heaven, to maintain a state of enmity and 
war with his Creator, and to associate with the infernal 
spirits, whose abode is darkness, and whose portion is 
despair! 

Reflections upon such a stat£ will give its full measure 
to the cup of trembling. Was not Belshazzar, the impious 
king of Babylon, a striking instance of what I am now 
saying? This monarch made a feast to a thousand of his 
lords, and assembled his princes, his concubines, and his 
wives. In order to increase the festivity, he sent for the 
consecrated vessels, which his father Nebuchadnezzar had 
taken from the temple of Jerusalem ; and, in these vessels 
which were holy to the Lord, he made libations to his 
vain idols, and, in his heart, bade defiance to the God of 
Israel. But, whilst thus he defied the living God, forth 
came the fingers of a man's hand, and, on the wall, which 
had lately resounded with joy, wrote the sentence of his 
fate! In a moment his countenance was changed, his 
whole frame shook, and his knees smote one against 
another, whilst the prophet in awful accents denounced 
his doom; " O man, thy kingdom is departed from thee!*' 

Logan. 



On the Threatened Invasion in 1803. 
By a series of criminal enterprises, by the success of 
guilty ambition, the liberties of Europe have been gradu- 



PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 207 

ally extinguished: the subjugation of Holland, Switzer- 
land, and the free towns of Germany, has completed that 
catastrophe; and we are the only people in the eastern 
hemisphere, who are in possession of equal laws, and a 
free constitution. Freedom, driven from every spot on 
the Continent, has sought an asylum in a country which 
she always chose for her favorite abode : but she is pur- 
sued even here, and threatened with destruction. The 
inundation of lawless power, after covering the whole 
earth, threatens to follow us here; and we are most ex- 
actly, most critically placed in the only aperture where it 
can be successfully repelled — in the Thermopylae of the 
world. As far as the interests of freedom are concerned — 
the most important by far of sublunary interests! — you, 
my countrymen, stand in the capacity of the foederal re- 
presentatives of the human race ; for with you it is to de- 
termine (under God) in what condition the latest posterity 
shall be born; their fortunes are entrusted to your care, 
and on your conduct at this moment depends the color 
and complexion of their destiny. If liberty, after being 
extinguished on the Continent, is suffered to expire here, 
whence is it ever to emerge in the midst of that thick night 
that will invest it? It remains with you then to decide, 
whether that freedom, at whose voice the kingdoms of 
Europe awoke from the sleep of ages, to run a career of 
virtuous emulation in every thing great and good; the 
freedom which dispelled the mists of superstition, and in- 
vited the nations to behold their God; whose magic torch 
kindled the rays of genius, the enthusiasm of poetry, and 
the flame of eloquence — the freedom which poured into 
our lap opulence and arts, and embellished life with in- 
numerable institutions and improvements, till it became 
a theatre of wonders ; it is for you to decide, whether this 
freedom shall yet survive, or be covered with a funeral 
pall, and wrapped in eternal gloom. It is not necessary 
to await your determination. In the solicitude you feel to 
approve yourselves worthy of such a trust, every thought 
of what is afflicting in warfare, every apprehension of 
danger must vanish, and you are impatient to mingle in 
the battle of the civilized world. Go then, ye defenders 
of your country, accompanied with every auspicious omen ; 
advance with alacrity into the field, where God himself 



208 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 

musters the host to war. Religion is too much interested 
in your success, not to lend you her aid; she will shed over 
this enterprise her selectest influence. While you are en- 
gaged in the field, many will repair to the closet, many to 
the sanctuary; the faithful of every name will employ that 
prayer which has power with God; the feeble hands, which 
are unequal to any other weapon, will grasp the sword of 
the Spirit; and from myriads of humble, contrite hearts, 
the voice of intercession, supplication, and weeping, will 
mingle in its ascent to heaven, with the shouts of battle, 
and the shock of arms. The extent of your resources, 
under God, is equal to the justice of your cause. But 
should Providence determine otherwise, should you fall in 
this struggle, should the nation fall, you will have the sa- 
tisfaction (the purest allotted to man!) of having performed 
your parts ; your names will be enrolled with the most il- 
lustrious dead, while posterity to the end of time, as often 
as they revolve the events of this period (and they will 
incessantly revolve them), will turn to you a reverential 
eye, while they mourn over the freedom which is entombed 
in your sepulchre. I cannot but imagine the virtuous he- 
roes, legislators, and patriots of every age and country, are 
bending from their elevated seats to witness this contest, 
as if they were incapable, till it be brought to a favorable 
issue, of enjoying their eternal repose. Enjoy that re- 
pose, illustrious immortals! Your mantle fell when you 
ascended; and thousands, inflamed with your spirit, and 
impatient to tread in your steps, are ready to swear by 
Him that sitteth upon the throne and liveth for ever and 
ever, they will protect freedom in her last asylum, and 
never desert that cause which you sustained by your la- 
bors, and cemented with your blood. And thou, sole 
Ruler among the children of men, to whom the shields of 
the earth belong, gird on thy sword, thou Most Mighty: 
go forth with our hosts in the day of battle! Impart, in 
addition to their hereditary valor, that confidence of suc- 
cess which springs from thy presence! Pour into their 
hearts the spirits of departed heroes ! Inspire them with 
their own; and, while led by thy hand, and fighting under 
thy banners, open thou their eyes to behold in every val- 
ley, and in every plain, what the prophet beheld by the 
same illumination — chariots of fire and horses of fire! 



PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 209 

Then shall the strong man be as tow, and the maker of it 
as a spark; and they shall both burn together, and none 
shall quench them. Hall, 



On the same Subject. 

In the mighty designs of Providence, the same valor 
which is called to defend our land, is the great means by 
which we can relieve the sufferings of the world around 
us. Amid that wreck which we have witnessed of social 
welfare — amid the dethronement of kings, and the sub- 
jugation of kingdoms, — amid the trembling neutrality of 
some, and the silent servility of others, — this country alone 
hath remained independent and undismayed, — and it is 
upon the valor of our arms, that Europe now reposes its 
last hope of returning liberty, and restored honor. Among 
the nations which surround us, whom either the force of 
the enemy has subdued, or their power intimidated, 
there is not one virtuous bosom that does not throb for 
our success, — the prayers of millions will follow our ban- 
ners into the field, and the arm of the soldier will be 
blessed by innumerable voices, which can never reach his 
ear. If we fail, — if the ancient prowess and intrepidity 
of our people is gone, — there is then a long close to all 
the hopes and all the honors of humanity; over the fairest 
portion of the civilized earth, the tide of military des- 
potism will roll, and bury, in its sanguinary flood, alike 
the monuments of former greatness, and the promises of 
future glory. But, — if we prevail; if the hearts of our 
people are exalted to the sublimity of the contest; the 
mighty spell which has enthralled the world will be 
broken, — the spirit of nature and of liberty will rekindle : 
— and the same blow which prostrates the enemy of our 
land, will burst the fetters of nations, and set free the 
energies of an injured world. 

The historian of future times, when he meditates on 
the affairs of men, will select for his fairest theme the re- 
cord of our country; and he will say, — Such is the glory 
of nations, when it is founded on virtue, when they scorn 
the vulgar " devices of the human heart," and follow only 
the " counsel of the Lord;" when they act from the high 
ambition of being the ministers of that " Ancient of Days," 



210 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 

whose "judgment is set" in nature, and before whom the 
" books of the universe are open." 

There is yet, in such hours, a greater consideration. If 
there be something inexpressibly animating in seeing our 
country as the instrument of Heaven in the restoration of 
happiness to mankind; if to us be given the sublime charge, 
of at once defending our own land, and guiding the des- 
tinies of human nature, — there is something also equally 
solemn in the remembrance of the duties which so high a 
commission involves. And there is an instinct which must 
teach all, that of our conduct in these trying hours we are 
finally to render an account. It is this exalted prospect 
which ought ever to be present to us, in the seasons of 
difficulty and alarm. It is now, in the midst of wars, and 
the desolation of nations, that we ought to fortify our 
hearts at the shrine of religion. It is now that we are to 
weigh the duties which are demanded of us by Heaven and 
earth; and to consider whether, in that last day, we are 
to appear as cowards to our country and our faith, and as 
purchasing an inglorious safety, by the sacrifice of every 
duty, and every honor of man, — or as the friends of order, 
of liberty, and of religion, and allied to those glorious 
spirits who have been the servants of God, and the 
benefactors of mankind. Over the conflict which is to 
ensue, let it never be forgotten, that greater eyes than 
those of man will be present ; and let every man that draws 
the sword of defence, remember that he is not only de- 
fending the liberties of his country, but the laws of his 
God. 

Let, then, the young and the brave of our people go 
forth, with hearts inaccessible to fear, and undoubting of 
their cause. Let them look back into time, and see the 
shades of their ancestors rising before them, and exhort- 
ing them to the combat. Let them look around them, 
and see a subjugated world the witnesses of their contest, 
and the partners in their success. Let them look forward 
into futurity, and see posterity prostrated before them, 
and all the honors and happiness of man dependent upon 
the firmness of their hearts, and the vigor of their arms. 
Yes ! let them go forth, and pour around our isle a living 
barrier to injustice and ambition : and, when that tide of 
anarchy which has overflowed the world, rolls its last waves 



PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 211 

to our shores, let them show to the foe as impenetrable a 
front, as the rocks of our land to the storms of the ocean. 

Alison. 



The Inquisition. 
The blood-thirsty Inquisitor, who has grown grey in 
the service of the mother of abominations, who has long 
made it his boast that none of her priests has brought so 
many hundreds of victims to her horrid altars, as himself; 
the venerable butcher, sits on his bench; the helpless in- 
nocent is brought bound from his dungeon, where no voice 
of comfort is heard, no friendly eye glances compassion ; 
where damp and stench, perpetual darkness and horrid 
silence, reign, except when broken by the echo of his 
groans; where months and years have been languished 
out, in want of all that nature requires ; an outcast from 
family, from friends, from ease and affluence, and a plea- 
sant habitation; from the blessed light of the world. He 
kneels ; he weeps ; he begs for pity. He sues for mercy, 
by the love of God, and by the bowels of humanity. Al- 
ready cruelly exercised by torture, nature shudders at the 
thought of repeating the dreadful sufferings, under which 
she had almost sunk before. He protests his innocence: 
he calls heaven to witness for him, and implores the di- 
vine power to touch the flinty heart, which all his cries 
and tears cannot move. The unfeeling monster talks of 
heresy and profanation of his cursed superstition. His 
furious zeal for priestly power, and a worldly church, stops 
his ears against the melting voice of a fellow-creature, 
prostrate at his feet. And the terror, necessary to be kept 
up among the blinded votaries, renders cruelty a proper 
instrument of religious slavery. The dumb executioners 
strip him of his rags; the rack is prepared; the ropes are 
extended; the wheels are driven round; the bloody whip 
and hissing pincers tear the quivering flesh from the bones; 
the pullies raise him to the roof; the sinews crack; the 
joints are torn asunder; the pavement swims in blood. 
The hardened minister of infernal cruelty, sits unmoved; 
his heart has long been steeled against compassion; he 
listens to the groans ; he views the strong convulsive pangs, 
when nature shrinks and struggles, and agonizing pain 



212 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 

rages in every pore: he counts the heart-rending shrieks 
of a fellow- creature in torment, and enjoys his anguish 
with the calmness of one who views a philosophical ex- 
periment. The wretched victim expires before him. He 
feels no movement, but of vexation at being deprived of 
his prey, before he had sufficiently glutted his hellish fury. 

He rises No thunder roars. — No lightning blasts him. 

He goes on to fill up the measure of his wickedness. He 
lives out his days in ease and luxury. He goes down to 
the grave, gorged with the blood of the innocent, nor does 
the earth cast up again the cursed carcase. 

Can any one think that such scenes would be suffered 
to be acted in a world, at the head of which sits, enthroned 
in supreme majesty, a Being of infinite goodness and per- 
fect justice, who has only to give his word, and such mon- 
sters would be, in an instant, driven by his thunder to the 
centre? — Can any one think that such proceedings would 
be suffered to pass unpunished, if there was not a life to 
come, a day appointed for rewarding every man according 
to his works? Burgh. 



Joseph and his Brethren. 

And Judah and his brethren came to Joseph's house 
(for he was yet there): and they fell before him on the 
ground. And Joseph said unto them, " What deed is 
this that you have done? wot ye not that such a man as 
I can certainly divine?" And Judah said, " What shall 
we say unto my lord? What shall we speak? or how 
shall we clear ourselves? God hath found out the iniquity 
of thy servants: behold, we are my lord's servants, both 
we, and he also with whom the cup is found." And he 
said, " God forbid that I should do so: but the man in 
whose hand the cup is found, he shall be my servant : and 
as for you, get you up in peace unto your father." 

Then Judah came near unto him, and said, " O my 
lord, let thy servant, I pray thee, speak a word in my 
lord's ears, and let not thine anger burn against thy ser- 
vant: for thou art even as Pharaoh. My lord asked his 
servants, saying, ' Have ye a father or a brother?' And 
we said unto my lord, < We have a father, an old man, 
and a child of his old age, a little one : and his brother is 



PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 213 

dead, and he alone is left of his mother, and his father 
loveth him.' And thou saidst unto thy servants, < Bring 
him down unto me, that I may set mine eyes upon him/ 
And we said unto my lord, i The lad cannot leave his fa- 
ther: for if he should leave his father, his father would 
die/ And thou saidst unto thy servants, ' Except your 
youngest brother come down with you, you shall see my 
face no more/ And it came to pass, when we came up 
unto thy servant my father, we told him the words of my 
lord. And our father said, ' Go again and buy us a little 
food/ And we said, ' We cannot go down : if our young- 
est brother be with us, then will we go down : for we may 
not see the man's face, except our youngest brother be 
with us/ And thy servant my father, said unto us, \ Ye 
know that my wife bare me two sons: and the one went 
out from me, and I said, surely he is torn in pieces : and 
I saw him not since. And if ye take this also from me: 
and mischief befal him, ye shall bring down my gray hairs 
with sorrow to the grave/ Now therefore when we come 
to thy servant our father, and the lad be not with us (see- 
ing that his life is bound up in the lad's life) : it shall come 
to pass, when he seeth that the lad is not with us, that he 
will die, and thy servants shall bring down the gray hairs 
of thy servant our father, with sorrow to the grave. For 
thy servant became surety for the lad unto my father, say- 
ing, if I bring him not unto thee, then I shall bear the 
blame to my father for ever. Now therefore, I pray thee, 
let thy servant abide instead of the lad, a bond-man to my 
lord, and let the lad go up with his brethren: For how 
shall I go up to my father, and the lad be not with me, 
lest peradventure I see the evil that shall come on my fa- 
ther." 

Then Joseph could not refrain himself before all them 
that stood by him, and he cried, " Cause eveiy man to go 
out from me:" and there stood no man with him, while 
Joseph made himself known unto his brethren. And he 
wept aloud, and the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh 
heard. And Joseph said unto his brethren, " lam Joseph; 
doth my father yet live?" And his brethren could not 
answer him: for they were troubled at his presence. 

And Joseph said unto his brethren, " Come near to me 
I pray you;" and they came near, and he said, "lam 



214 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 

Joseph, your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt. Now 
therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves that 
ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to 
preserve life. For these two years hath the famine been 
in the land, and yet there are five years, in the which 
there shall be neither earing nor harvest. And God sent 
me before you, to preserve you a posterity in the earth, 
and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it 
was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath 
made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, 
and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt. Haste you, 
and go up to my father, and say unto him, " Thus saith 
thy son Joseph, \ God hath made me lord of all Egypt, 
come down unto me, tarry not/ And thou shalt dwell in 
the land of Goshen, and thou shalt be near unto me, thou, 
and thy children, and thy children's children, and thy 
flocks, and thy herds, and all that thou hast. And there 
will I nourish thee (for yet there are five years of famine), 
lest thou and thy household, and all that thou hast, come 
to poverty. And behold, your eyes see, and the eyes of 
my brother Benjamin, that it is my mouth that speaketh 
unto you. And you shall tell my father of all my glory 
in Egypt, and of all that you have seen, and ye shall haste, 
and bring down my father hither." And he fell upon his 
brother Benjamin's neck, and wept; and Benjamin wept 
upon his neck. Moreover he kissed all his brethren, and 
wept upon them: and after that, his brethren talked with 
him. 

And the fame thereof was heard in Pharaoh's house, 
saying, " Joseph's brethren are come," and it pleased 
Pharaoh well, and all his servants. And Pharaoh said 
unto Joseph, " Say unto thy brethren, i this do ye, lade 
your beasts, and go, get you unto the land of Canaan: 
and take your father and your households, and come unto 
me: and I will give you the good of the land of Egypt, 
and ye shall eat the fat of the land. Now thou art com- 
manded, this do ye, take you waggons out of the land of 
Egypt, for your little ones, and for your wives, and bring 
your father and come. Also regard not your stuff: for 
the good of all the land of Egypt is yours.' " 

And the children of Israel did so: and Joseph gave 
them waggons, according to the commandment of Pharaoh, 



PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 215 

and gave theni provision for the way. To all of them he 
gave each man changes of raiment: but to Benjamin he 
gave three hundred pieces of silver, and five changes of 
raiment. And to his father he sent after this manner: ten 
asses laden with the good things of Egypt, and ten she 
asses laden with corn, and bread and meat for his father 
by the way. So he sent his brethren away, and they de- 
parted: and he said unto them, " see that ye fall 

NOT OUT BY THE WAY." 

And they went up out of Egypt, and came into the 
land of Canaan unto Jacob their father, and told him, say- 
ing, u Joseph is yet alive, and he is governor over all the 
land of Egypt." And Jacob's heart fainted, for he be- 
lieved them not. And they told him all the words of Jo- 
seph, which he had said unto them : and when he saw the 
waggons which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit 
of Jacob their father revived. And Israel said, " It is 
enough, Joseph my son is yet alive: I will go 

AND SEE HIM BEFORE I DIE." 



Nathcms Parable. 

And the Lord sent Nathan unto David; and he went 
unto him, and said unto him: — " There were two men in 
one city: the one rich, and the other poor. The rich 
man had exceeding many flocks and herds: but the poor 
man had nothing, save one little ewe lamb, which he had 
nourished and brought up; and it grew up together with 
him; and with his children; it did eat of his own meat, 
and drink of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was 
unto him as a daughter. 

And there came a traveller unto the rich man, and he 
spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd, to 
dress for the wayfaring man that was come unto him; but 
took the poor man's lamb, and dressed it for the man that 
was come unto him.' 5 

And David's anger was greatly kindled against the 
man; and he said to Nathan — " As the Lord liveth, the 
man that hath done tins thing shall surely die; and he shall 
restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this tiring, and 
because he had no pity." — And Nathan said unto David, 
" Thou art the many 



216 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 



The Song of Deborah and Barak, 
Then sang Deborah, and Barak the son of Abinoam, 
on that day, saying, Praise ye the Lord for the avenging 
of Israel, when the people willingly offered themselves. 
Hear, O ye kings; give ear, O ye princes: I, even I, 
will sing unto the Lord; I will sing praise to the Lord 
God of Israel. Lord, when thou wentest out of Seir, 
when thou marchedst out of the field of Edom, the earth 
trembled, and the heavens dropped, the clouds also dropped 
water. The mountains melted from before the Lord, even 
that Sinai from before the Lord God of Israel. In the 
days of Shamgar the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, 
the highways were unoccupied, and the travellers walked 
through byways. The inhabitants of the villages ceased, 
they ceased in Israel, until that I Deborah arose, that I 
arose a mother in Israel. They chose new gods; then 
was war in the gates: was there a shield or spear seen 
among forty thousand in Israel? My heart is toward the 
governors of Israel, that offered themselves willingly among 
the people. Bless ye the Lord. Speak, ye that ride on 
white asses, ye that sit in judgment, and walk by the way. 
They that are delivered from the noise of archers in the 
places of drawing water, there shall they rehearse the 
righteous acts of the Lord, even the righteous acts toward 
the inhabitants of his villages in Israel : then shall the peo- 
ple of the Lord go down to the gates. Awake, awake, 
Deborah; awake, awake; utter a song: arise, Barak, and 
lead thy captivity captive, thou son of Abinoam. Then 
he made him that remaineth have dominion over the no* 
bles among the people : the Lord made me have dominion 
over the mighty. Out of Ephraim was there a root of 
them against Amalek; after thee, Benjamin, among thy 
people : out of Machir came down governors, and out of 
Zebulun they that handle the pen of the writer. And the 
princes of Issachar were with Deborah; even Issachar, 
and also Barak: he was sent on foot into the valley. For 
the divisions of Reuben there were great thoughts of heart. 
Why abodest thou among the sheep-folds, to hear the 
bleatings of the flocks? For the divisions of Reuben there 
were great searchings of heart. Gilead abode beyond 
Jordan: and why did Dan remain in ships? Asher con- 



PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 21/ 

tinuecl on the sea-shore, and abode in his breaches. Ze- 
bulun and Naphtali were a people that jeoparded their 
lives unto the death in the high places of the field. The 
kings came and fought; then fought the kings of Canaan 
in Taanach by the waters of Megiddo ; they took no gain 
of money. They fought from heaven; the stars in their 
courses fought against Sisera. The river of Kishon swept 
them away, that ancient river, the river Kishon. O my 
soul, thou hast trodden down strength. Then were the 
horse -hoofs broken by the means of the prancings, the 
prancings of their mighty ones. Curse ye Meroz (said 
the angel of the Lord), curse ye bitterly the inhabitants 
thereof; because they came not to the help of the Lord, 
to the help of the Lord against the mighty. Blessed above 
women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be; blessed 
shall she be above women in the tent. He asked water, 
and she gave him milk; she brought forth butter in a 
lordly dish. She put her hand to the nail, and her right 
hand to the workmen's hammer; and with the hammer 
she smote Sisera: she smote off his head, when she had 
pierced and stricken through his temples. At her feet he 
bowed, he fell, he lay down; at her feet he bowed, he 
fell : where he bowed, there he fell down dead. The mo- 
ther of Sisera looked out at a window, and cried through 
the lattice, Why is his chariot so long in coming? why 
tarry the wheels of his chariots? Her wise ladies an- 
swered her, yea, she returned answer to herself, Have 
they not sped? have they not divided the prey? to every 
man a damsel or two, to Sisera a prey of divers colors, a 
prey of divers colors of needle-work, of divers colors of 
needle-work on both sides, meet for the necks of them 
that take the spoil? So let all thine enemies perish, O 
Lord: but let them that love him be as the sun when Ke 
goeth forth in his might. 



Jeremiah lamenteth the Jews, fyc. 
Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a foun- 
tain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain 
*of the daughter of my people ! Oh that I had in the wil- 
derness a lodging-place of wayfaring men; that I might 
leave my people, and go from them! for they be all adul- 



218 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 

terers. an assembly of treacherous men. And they bend 
their tongues like their bow for lies; but they are not 
valiant for the truth upon the earth: for they proceed from 
evil to evil, and they know not me. saith the Lord. Take 
ye heed every one of Ins neighbor, and trust ye not in 
any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant, and 
every neighbor will walk with slanders. And they will 
deceive every one his neighbor, and will not speak the 
truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and 
weary themselves to commit iniquity. Thine habitation 
is in the midst of deceit: through deceit they refuse to 
know me. saith the Lord. Therefore thus saith the Lord 
of hosts. Behold. I will melt them, and try them: for how 
shall I do for the daughter of my people? Their tongue 
is as an arrow shot out: it speaketh deceit: one speaketh 
peaceably to his neighbor with his mouth, but in heart he 
layeth his wait. 

Shall I not visit them for these things? saith the Lord: 
shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this? 
For the mountains will I take up a weeping and wailing, 
and for the habitations of the wilderness a lamentation, 
because they are burnt up. so that none can pass tlnough 
them: neither can men hear the voice of the cattle: both 
the fowl of the heavens and the beast are tied; they are 
gone. And I will make Jerusalem heaps, and a den of 
dragons: and I will make the cities of Judaii desolate, 
without an inhabitant. 

Who is the wise man. that may understand this? and 
who is he to whom the mouth of the Lord hath spoken, 
that he mav declare it. for what the land perisheth and is 
burnt up like a wilderness, that none passeth through? 
And the Lord saith. Because they have forsaken my law 
which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice, 
neither walked therein: But have walked after the ima- 
gination of their own heart, and after Baalim, which their 
fathers taught them: Therefore thus saith the Lord of 
hosts, the God of Israel; Behold. I will feed them, even 
this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall 
to drink. I will scatter them also among the heathen, 
whom neither they nor their fathers have known, and 
I will send a sword after them, till I have consumed 
them. 



PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 219 

Thus saith the Lordlrf hosts, Consider ye, and call for 
the mourning women, that they may come; and send for 
cunning women, that they may come : And let them make 
haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run 
down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters. 
For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, How are we 
spoiled! we are greatly confounded, because we have for- 
saken the land, because our dwellings have cast us out. 
Yet hear the word of the Lord, O ye women, and let your 
ear receive the word of his mouth, and teach your daughters 
wailing, and every one her neighbor lamentation: For 
death is come up into our windows, and is entered into 
our palaces, to cut off the children from without, and the 
young men from the streets. Speak, Thus saith the Lord, 
Even the carcases of men shall fall as dung upon the open 
field, and as the handful after the harvest-man, and none 
shall gather them. 

Thus saith the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his 
wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, 
let not the rich man glory in his riches: But let him that 
glorieth, glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth 
me, that I am the Lord which exercise loving-kindness, 
judgment, and righteousness, in the earth; for in these 
things I delight, saith the Lord. 

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will punish 
all them which are circumcised with the uncircumcised ; 
Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, and the children of Am- 
nion, and Moab, and all that are in the utmost corners, 
that dwell in the wilderness; for all these nations are un- 
circumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised 
in the heart. 



Pauls Defence before Agrippa. 
Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Thou art permitted to 
speak for thyself. Then Paul stretched forth the hand, 
and answered for himself: I think myself happy, king 
Agrippa, because I shall answer for myself this day before 
I thee, touching all the things whereof I am accused of the 
Jews ; Especially because I know thee to be expert in all 
customs and questions which are among the Jews: where- 
fore I beseech thee to hear me patiently. My manner of 



220 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 

life from my youth, which was at first among mine own 
nation at Jerusalem, know all the Jews; who knew me 
from the beginning (if they would testify), that after the 
straitest sect of -our religion, I lived a Pharisee. And 
now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise 
made of God unto our fathers : Unto which promise our 
twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope 
to come: for which hope's sake, king Agrippa, I am ac- 
cused of the Jews. Why should it be thought a thing 
incredible with you, that God should raise the dead? I 
verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things 
contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Which thing 
I also did in Jerusalem: and many of the saints did I shut 
up in prison, having received authority from the chief 
priests ; and when they were put to death, I gave my voice 
against them. And I punished them oft in every syna- 
gogue, and compelled them to blaspheme : and, being ex- 
ceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto 
strange cities. Whereupon, as I went to Damascus with 
authority and commission from the chief priests, At mid- 
day, O king, I saw in the way a light from heaven, above 
the brightness of the sun, shining round about me,~ and 
them who journeyed with me. And when we were all 
fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and 
saying, in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest 
thou me? It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. 
And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am 
Jesus, whom thou persecutest. But rise, and stand upon 
thy feet; for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, 
to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things 
which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I 
will appear unto thee ; Delivering thee from the people, 
and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, To 
open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, 
from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive 
forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them who are 
sanctified by faith that is in me. Whereupon, O king 
Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision : 
But showed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusa- 
lem, and throughout all the coasts of Judea, and then to 
the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, 
and do works meet for repentance. For these causes the 



PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 221 

Jews caught me in the temple, and went about to kill me. 
Having therefore obtained help of God, I continue unto 
this day, witnessing both to small and great, saying none 
other things than those which the prophets and Moses did 
say should come; That Christ should suffer, and that he 
should be the first that should rise from the dead, and 
should show light unto the people, and to the Gentiles. 

And as he thus spake for himself, Festus said with a 
loud voice, Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning 
doth make thee mad. But he said, I am not mad, most 
noble Festus ; but speak forth the words of truth and so- 
berness. For the king knoweth of these things, before 
whom also I speak freely: for I am persuaded that none 
of these things are hidden from him; for this thing was 
not done in a corner. King Agrippa, believest thou the 
prophets? I know that thou believest. Then Agrippa 
said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Chris- 
tian. And Paul said, I would to God, that not only thou, 
but also all that hear me this day, were both almost, and 
altogether such as I am, except these bonds. 



ANCIENT ELOQUENCE. 



The Oration of 2Escliines against Demosthenes^ on the 
Crown. 
In such a situation of affairs, and in such disorders, as 
you yourselves are sensible of, the only method of saving 
the wrecks of government is, if I mistake not, to allow 
full liberty to accuse those who have invaded your laws. 
But if you shut them up, or suffer others to do this, I 
prophesy that you will fall insensibly, and that very soon, 
under a tyrannical power. For you know, Athenians, 
that government is divided into three kinds; monarchy, 
oligarchy, and democracy. As to the two former, they 
are governed at the will and pleasure of those who reign 
in either; whereas established laws only reign in a popular 
state. I make these observations, therefore, that none of 
you may be ignorant, but on the contrary, that every one 
may be entirely assured, that the day he ascends the seat 
of justice, to examine an accusation upon the invasion of 
the laws, that very day he goes to give judgment upon his 
own independence. And, indeed, the legislator who is 
convinced that a free state can support itself no longer 
than the laws govern, takes particular care to prescribe 
this form of an oath to judges, " I will judge according to 
the laws." The remembrance, therefore, of this being 
deeply implanted in your minds, must inspire you with a 
just abhorrence of any persons whatsoever who dare trans- 
gress them by rash decrees; and that far from ever look- 
ing upon a transgression of this kind as a small fault, you 
always consider it as an enormous and capital crime. Do 
not suffer, then, any one to make you depart from so wise 
a principle. — But as, in the army, every one of you would 
be ashamed to quit the post assigned him by the general; 



ANCIENT ELOQUENCE. 223 

so let eveiy one of you be this day ashamed to abandon 
the post which the laws have given you in the common- 
wealth. What post? — that of protectors of the govern- 
ment. 

Must we, in your person, crown the author of the public 
calamities, or must we destroy him? And, indeed, what 
unexpected revolutions, what unthought of catastrophes, 
have we not seen in our days? — The king of Persia, that 
king who opened a passage through Mount Athos; who 
bound the Hellespont in chains; who was so imperious as 
to command the Greeks to acknowledge him sovereign 
both of sea and land; who in his letters and dispatches 
presumed to style himself the sovereign of the world from 
the rising to the setting of the sun; and who fights now, 
not to rule over the rest of mankind, but to save his own 
life. D^piot we see those very men who signalised their 
zeal in the relief of Delphos, invested both with the glory, 
for which that powerful king was once so conspicuous, 
and with the title of the chief of the Greeks against him ? 
As to Thebes, which borders upon Attica, have we not 
seen it disappear in one day from the midst of Greece? — 
And with regard to the unhappy Lacedaemonians, what 
calamities have not befallen them, only for taking but a 
small part of the spoils of the temple! They who for- 
merly assumed a superiority over Greece, are they not 
now going to send ambassadors to Alexander's court; to 
bear the name of hostages in his train; to become a spec- 
tacle of misery; to bow the knee before the monarch; 
submit themselves and their country to his mercy; and 
receive such laws as a conqueror, a conqueror they at- 
tacked first, shall think fit to prescribe them? Athens 
itself, the common refuge of the Greeks ; Athens formerly 
peopled with ambassadors, who flocked to claim its al- 
mighty protection; is not this city now obliged to fight, 
not to obtain a superiority over the Greeks, but to pre- 
serve itself from destruction? Such are the misfortunes 
which Demosthenes has brought upon us, since his inter- 
meddling with the administration. 

Imagine then, Athenians, when he shall invite the con- 
fidants and accomplices of his abject perfidy to range 
themselves around him, towards the close of his harangue ; 
imagine then, Athenians, on your side, that you see the 



224 ANCIENT ELOQUENCE. 

ancient benefactors of this commonwealth, <k*mi up in 
battle array, round this rostrum, where I am now speak- 
ing, in order to repulse that audacious band. Imagine 
you hear Solon, who strengthened the popular govern- 
ment by such excellent laws; that philosopher, that in- 
comparable legislator, conjuring you with a gentleness and 
modesty becoming his character, not to set a higher value 
upon Demosthenes's oratorical flourishes than upon your 
oaths and your laws. Imagine you hear Aristides, who 
made so exact and just a division of the contributions im- 
posed upon the Greeks for the common cause; that sage 
dispenser, who left no other inheritance to his daughters, 
but the public gratitude, which was their portion; ima- 
gine, I say, you hear him bitterly bewailing the outrageous 
manner in which we trample upon justice, and speaking 
to you in these words: What! because Ar^mius of 
Zelia, that Asiatic, who passed through Athens, where he 
even enjoyed the rights of hospitality, had brought gold 
from the Medes into Greece; your ancestors were going 
to send him to the place of execution, and banished him, 
not only from their city, but from all the countries de*- 
pendent on them; and will not you blush to decree 
Demosthenes, who has not indeed brought gold from 
the Medes, but has received such sums of money from all 
parts to betray you, and now enjoys the fruit of his trea- 
sures ; will not you, I say, blush to decree a crown of gold 
to Demosthenes? Do you think that Themistocles, and 
the heroes who were killed in the battles of Marathon and 
Platsea — do you think the very tombs of your ancestors 
will not send forth groans, if you crown a man who, by 
his own confession, has been for ever conspiring with bar- 
barians to ruin Greece? 

As to myself, O earth! O sun! O virtue! And you, 
who are the springs of true discernment, lights both na- 
tural and acquired, by which we distinguish good from 
evil, I call you to witness, that I have used all my endea- 
vors to relieve the state, and to plead her cause. I could 
have wished my speech had been equal to the greatness 
and importance of the subject; at least, I can flatter my- 
self with having discharged my duty according to my 
abilities, if I have not done it according to my wishes; 
Do you, Athenians, from the reasons you have heard 5 and 



ANCIENT ELOQUENCE. 225 

those which your wisdom will suggest ; do you pronounce 
such a judgment as is conformable to strict justice, and 
the common good demands from you. 



The Answer of Demosthenes. 

In the first place, ye men of Athens, I make my prayer 
to all the powers of Heaven, that such affection as I have 
ever invariably discovered to this state, and all its citizens, 
you, now, may entertain for me, upon this present trial. 
And (what concerns you nearly, what essentially concerns 
your religion and your honor) — that the gods may so dis- 
pose your minds, as to permit me to proceed in my defence, 
not as directed by my adversary (that would be severe 
indeed!) but by the laws, and by your oath; in which, to 
all the other equitable clauses, we find this expressly add- 
ed — " Each party shall have equal audience." — This im- 
ports not merely that you shall not prejudge, not merely 
that the same impartiality shall be shown to both; but 
still further, that the contending parties shall each be left 
at full liberty to arrange, and to conduct his pleading, as 
his choice or judgment may determine. 

In many instances hath iEschines the entire advantage 
in this cause. Two there are of more especial moment. 
First, as to our interests in the contest, we are on terms 
utterly unequal; for they are by no means points of equal 
import, for me to be deprived of your affections, and for 
him to be defeated in his prosecution. As to me — but, 
when I am entering on my defence, let me suppress every 
thing invidious, sensible as I must be of this the advantage 
of my adversary. — In the next place, such is the natural 
disposition of mankind, that invective and accusation are 
heard with pleasure; while they who speak their own 
praises are received with impatience. His, then, is the 
part which commands a favorable acceptance ; that which 
must prove offensive to every single hearer is reserved for 
me. If, to guard against this disadvantage, I should de- 
cline all mention of my own actions, I know not by what 
means I could refute the charge, or establish my preten- 
sions to this honor. If, on the other hand, I enter into a 
detail of my whole conduct, private and political, I must 



226 ANCIENT ELOQUENCE, 

be obliged to speak perpetually of myself. Here then I 
shall endeavor to preserve all possible moderation: and 
what the circumstances of the case necessarily extort from 
me, must, in justice, be imputed to him who first moved 
a prosecution so extraordinary. 

But, since he hath insisted so much upon the event, I 
shall hazard a bold assertion. But I beseech you, Athe- 
nians! let it not be deemed extravagant: let it be weighed 
with candor. I say, then, that had we all known what 
fortune was to attend our efforts ; had we all foreseen the 
final issue; had you foretold it, iEschines; had you bel- 
lowed out your terrible denunciations (you whose voice 
was never heard) ; yet even in such a case, must this city 
have pursued the very same conduct, if she had retained 
a thought of glory, of her ancestors, or of future times. 
For, thus, she could only have been deemed unfortunate 
in her attempts : and misfortunes are the lot of all men, 
whenever it may please Heaven to inflict them. But if 
that state which once claimed the first rank in Greece, 
had resigned this rank in time of danger, she had incurred 
the censure of betraying the whole nation to the enemy. 
What part of Greece, what part of the barbarian world has 
not heard, that the Thebans in their periods of success, — 
that the Lacedaemonians, whose power was older and more 
extensive, — that the king of Persia would have cheerfully 
and joyfully consented that this state should enjoy her own 
dominions, together with an accession of territory ample 
as her wishes, upon this condition — that she should receive 
law, and suffer another state to preside in Greece? But 
to Athenians, this was a condition unbecoming their 
descent, intolerable to their spirit, repugnant to their na- 
ture. Athens never was once known to live in a slavish, 
though a secure obedience to unjust and arbitrary power. 
No: our whole history is one series of noble contests for 
pre-eminence; the whole period of our existence hath been 
spent in braving dangers, for the sake of glory and renown. 
And so highly do you esteem such conduct, so consonant 
to the Athenian character, that those of your ancestors 
who were most distinguished in the pursuit of it, are ever 
the most favorite objects of your praise — and with reason. 
For who can reflect without astonishment upon the mag- 
nanimity of those men who resigned their lands, gave up 



ANCIENT ELOQUENCE. 227 

their city, and embarked in their ships, to avoid the odious 
state of subjection? who chose Themistocles, the adviser 
of this conduct, to command their forces; and, when Ly- 
cidas proposed that they should yield to the terms pre- 
scribed, stoned him to death. Nay, the public indignation 
was not yet allayed. Your very wives inflicted the same 
vengeance on his wife. For the Athenians of that day 
looked out for no speaker, no general to procure them a 
state of prosperous slavery. They had the spirit to reject 
even life, unless they were allowed to enjoy that life in 
freedom. Should I then attempt to assert, that it was I 
who inspired you with sentiments worthy of your ances- 
tors, I should meet the just resentment of every hearer. 
No; it is my point to show, that such sentiments are pro- 
perly your own; that they were the sentiments of my 
country, long before my days. I claim but my share of 
merit, in having acted on such principles, in every part of 
my administration. He then who condemns every part of 
my administration, he who directs you to treat me with 
seventy, as one who hath involved the state in terrors and 
dangers, while he labors to deprive me of present honor, 
robs you of the applause of all posterity. For if you 
now pronounce, that, as my public conduct hath not been 
right, Ctesiphon must stand condemned, it must be thought 
that you yourselves have acted wrong, not that you owe 
your present state to the caprice of fortune. — But it can- 
not be! No, my countrymen! it cannot be you have 
acted wrong, in encountering danger bravely, for the li- 
berty and the safety of all Greece. No ! by those generous 
souls of ancient times, who were exposed at Marathon! 
By those who stood arrayed at Plata^a! By those who 
encountered the Persian fleet at Salamis! who fought at 
Artemisium! By all those illustrious sons of Athens, 
whose remains he deposited in the public monuments ! all 
of whom received the same honorable interment from their 
country; not those only who prevailed, not those only who 
were victorious, and with reason. What was the part of 
gallant men, they all performed: their success was such as 
the supreme director of the world dispensed to each. 

As to those public works so much the object of your 
ridicule, they undoubtedly demand a due share of honor 
and applause : but I rate them far beneath the great merits 



228 ANCIENT ELOQUENCE. 

of my administration. It is not with stones nor bricks that 
I have fortified the city. It is not from works like these 
that I derive my reputation. Would you know my me- 
thods of fortifying; examine, and you will find them, in 
the arms, the town, the territories, the harbors I have 
secured, the navies, the troops, the armies I have raised. 
These are the works by which I defended Attica, as far 
as human foresight could defend it : These are the fortifi- 
cations I drew round our whole territory, and not the cir- 
cuit of our harbor, or of our city only. In these acts of 
policy, in these provisions for a war, I never yielded to 
Philip. No; it was our generals and our confederate 
forces who yielded to fortune. Would you know the 
proofs of this; they are plain and evident. Consider: 
what was the part of a faithful citizen? of a prudent, an 
active, and an honest minister? Was he not to secure 
Eubea, as our defence against all attacks by sea? Was 
he not to make Beotia our barrier on the midland side? 
the cities bordering on Peloponnesus our bulwark on that 
quarter? Was he not to attend with due precaution to the 
importation of corn, that this trade might be protected, 
through all its progress, up to our own harbor? Was he 
not to cover those districts which we commanded by sea- 
sonable detachments, as the Proconesus, the Chersonesus, 
and Tenedos? to exert himself in the assembly for this 
purpose? while, with equal zeal, he labored to gain others 
to our interest and alliance, as Byzantium, Abydos, and 
Eubea? Was he not to cut off the best and most im- 
portant resources of our enemies, and to supply those in 
which our country was defective? — And all this you 
gained by my counsels and my administration; — such 
counsels and such an administration, as must appear, upon 
a fair and equitable view, the result of strict integrity; 
such as left no favorable juncture unimproved, through 
ignorance or treachery; such as ever had their due effect, 
as far as the judgment and abilities of one man could 
prove effectual. But if some superior being, if the power 
of fortune, if the misconduct of generals, if the iniquity of 
you traitors, or if all these together broke in upon us, and 
at length involved us in one general devastation, how is 
Demosthenes to be blamed? Had there been a single 
man in each Grecian state to act the same part which I 



ANCIENT ELOQUENCE. 229 

supported in this city; nay, had but one such man been 
found in Thessaly, and one in Arcadia, actuated by my 
principles; not a single Greek, either beyond or on this 
side Thermopylae, could have experienced the misfortunes 
of this day. All then had been free and independent, in 
perfect tranquillity, security, and happiness; uncontroled, 
in their several communities, by any foreign power, and 
filled with gratitude to you and to your state, the authors 
of these blessings so extensive and so precious — and all 
this by my means. To convince you that I have spoken 
much less than I could justify by facts; that, in this de- 
tail, I have studiously guarded against envy, take — read 
the list of our confederates, as they were procured by my 
decrees. 

There are two distinguishing qualities (Athenians!) 
which the virtuous citizen should ever possess (I speak 
in general terms, as the least invidious method of doing 
justice to myself), a zeal for the honor and pre-eminence 
of the state, in his official conduct., on all occasions; and 
in all transactions, an affection for his country. This na- 
ture can bestow. Abilities and success depend upon 
another power. And in this affection you find me firm 
and invariable. Not the solemn demand of my person, 
not the vengeance of the Amphictyonic council, which 
they denounced against me, not the terror of their threat- 
enings, not the flattery of their promises, — no, nor the 
fury of those accursed wretches, whom they roused like 
wild beasts against me, could ever tear this affection from 
my breast. From first to last, I have uniformly pursued 
the just and virtuous course of conduct: asserter of the 
honors, of the prerogatives, of the glory of my country: 
studious to support them, zealous to advance them, my 
whole being is devoted to this glorious cause. I was never 
known to march through the city with a face of joy and 
exultation at the success of a foreign power; embracing, 
and announcing the joyful tidings to those who, I supposed, 
would transmit it to the proper place. I was never known 
to receive the successes of my own country with trem- 
bling's, with sighings, with eyes bending to the earth, like 
those impious men who are the defamers of the state, as 
if, by such conduct, they were not defamers of themselves ; 
who look abroad, and, when a foreign potentate hath 



230 ANCIENT ELOQUENCE. 

established his power on the calamities of Greece, ap- 
plaud the event; and tell us we should take every means 
to perpetuate his power. 

Hear me, ye immortal gods! and let not these their 
desires be ratified in Heaven! infuse a better spirit into 
these men! Inspire even their minds with purer senti- 
ments ! — This is my first prayer. Or, if their natures are 
not to be reformed; on them, on them only, discharge 
your vengeance! Pursue them both by land and sea! 
Pursue them even to destruction! But, to us display your 
goodness in a speedy deliverance from impending evils, 
and all the blessings of protection and tranquillity! 



Demosthenes to the Athenians, exciting them to prosecute 
the War against Philip. 

When I compare, Athenians, the speeches of some 
amongst us with their actions, I am at a loss to reconcile 
what I see with what I hear. Their protestations are full 
of zeal against the public enemy; but their measures are 
so inconsistent, that all their professions become suspected. 
By confounding you with a variety of projects, they per- 
plex your resolutions ; and lead you from executing what 
is in your power, by engaging you in schemes not reduci- 
ble to practice. 

'Tis true, there was a time when we were powerful 
enough, not only to defend our own borders, and protect 
our allies, but even to invade Philip in his own dominions. 
Yes, Athenians; there was such a juncture; I remember 
it well. But, by neglect of proper opportunities, we are 
no longer in a situation to be invaders ; it will be well for 
us if we can provide for our own defence and our allies. 
Never did any conjuncture require so much prudence as 
this. However, I should not despair of seasonable reme- 
dies, had I the art to prevail with you to be unanimous 
in right measures. The opportunities which have so often 
escaped us, have not been lost through ignorance, or want 
of judgment, but through negligence or treachery. — If I 
assume, at this time, more than ordinary liberty of speech, 
I conjure you to suffer patiently those truths which have 
no other end but your own good. You have too many 



ANCIENT ELOQUENCE. 231 

reasons to be sensible how much you have suffered by 
hearkening to sycophants. I shall therefore, be plain in 
laying before you the grounds of past miscarriages, in or- 
der to correct you in your future conduct. 

You may remember, it is not above three or four years 
since we had the news of Philip's laying siege to the for- 
tress of Juno in Thrace. It was, as I think, in October 
we received this intelligence. We voted an immediate 
supply of threescore talents; forty men-of-war were or- 
dered to sea; and so zealous we were, that, preferring the 
necessities of state to our very laws, our citizens above the 
age of five-and-forty years were commanded to serve. 
What followed? — A whole year was spent idly without 
any thing done ; and it was but in the third month of the 
following year, a little after the celebration of the feast of 
Ceres, that Charademus set sail, furnished with no more 
than five talents, and ten galleys not half manned. 

A rumour was spread that Philip was sick. That ru- 
mour was followed by another, that Philip was dead. — 
And, then, as if all danger died with him, you dropped 
your preparations: whereas, then — then was your time 
to push and be active: then was your time to secure 
yourselves, and confound him at once. Had your resolu- 
tions, taken with so much heat, been as warmly seconded 
by action, you had been then as terrible to Philip, as 
Philip, recovered, is now to you. — " To what purpose, at 
this time, these reflections? What is done, cannot be 
undone." — But, by your leave, Athenians, though past 
moments are not to be recalled, past errors may be re- 
trieved. Have we not, now, a fresh provocation to war? 
Let the memory of oversights, by which you have suffered 
so much, instruct you to be more vigilant in the present 
danger. If the Olynthians are not instantly succoured, 
and with your utmost efforts, you become assistants to 
Philip, and serve him more effectually than he can help 
himself. 

It is not, surely, necessary to warn you, that votes alone 
can be of no consequence. Had your resolutions of them- 
selves, the virtue to compass what you intend, we should 
not see them multiply every day, as they do, and, upon 
every occasion, with so little effect; nor would Philip 
be in a condition to brave and affront us in this manner. 



232 ANCIENT ELOQUENCE. 

Proceed, then, Athenians, to support your deliberations 
with vigor. You have heads capable of advising what is 
best; you have judgment and experience to discern what 
is right ; and you have power and opportunity to execute 
what you determine. What time so proper for action? 
What occasion so happy? And when can you hope for 
such another, if this be neglected? Has not Philip, con- 
trary to all treaties, insulted you in Thrace? Does he 
not, at this instant, straiten and invade your confederates, 
whom you have solemnly sworn to protect? Is he not 
an implacable enemy — a faithless ally — the usurper of pro- 
vinces to which he has no title nor pretence — a stranger, 
a barbarian, a tyrant? and, indeed, what is he not? 

Observe, I beseech you, men of Athens, how different 
your conduct appears from the practices of your ancestors ; 
— they were friends to truth and plain dealing, and de- 
tested flattery and servile compliance. By unanimous 
consent, they continued arbiters of all Greece, for the 
space of forty-five years, without interruption. A public 
fund of no less than ten thousand talents, was ready for 
any emergency. They exercised over the Kings of Ma- 
cedon, that authority which is due to barbarians; obtained 
both by sea and land, in their own persons, frequent and 
signal victories; and, by their noble exploits, transmitted 
to posterity an immortal memory of their virtue, superior 
to the reach of malice and detraction. It is to them we 
owe that great number of public edifices, by which the 
city of Athens exceeds all the rest of the world in beauty 
and magnificence. It is to them we owe so many stately 
temples, so richly embellished, but, above all, adorned 
with the spoils of vanquished enemies. — But visit their 
own private habitations; visit the houses of Aristides, 
Miltiades, or any other of those patriots of antiquity — you 
will find nothing, not the least mark or ornament, to dis- 
tinguish them from their neighbors. They took part in 
the government, not to enrich themselves, but the public: 
they had no scheme or ambition, but for the public: nor 
knew any interest but the public. It was by a close and 
steady application to the general good of their country, by 
an exemplary piety towards the immortal gods, by a strict 
faith, and religious honesty betwixt man and man, and a 
moderation always uniform and of a piece, they established 



ANCIENT ELOQUENCE. 233 

that reputation, which remains to this day, and will last 
to utmost posterity. 

Such, oh men of Athens ! were your ancestors ; so glo- 
rious in the eye of the world ; so bountiful and munificent 
to their country; so sparing, so modest, so self-denying, 
to themselves. What resemblance can we find, in the 
present generation, of these great men? At a time when 
your ancient competitors have left you a clear stage — 
when the Lacedemonians are disabled, the Thebans em- 
ployed in troubles of their own — when no other State 
whatever is in a condition to rival or molest you ; in short, 
when you are at full liberty — when you have the oppor- 
tunity and the power to become once more the sole ar- 
biters of Greece, — you permit, patiently, whole provinces 
to be wrested from you ; you lavish the public money in 
scandalous and obscure uses; you suffer your allies to 
perish in time of peace, whom you preserved in time of 
war; and, to sum up all, you yourselves, by your merce- 
nary court and servile resignation to the will and pleasure 
of designing, insidious leaders, abet, encourage, and 
strengthen the most dangerous and formidable of your 
enemies. Yes, Athenians, I repeat it, you yourselves are 
the contrivers of your own ruin. Lives there a man who 
has confidence enough to deny it? Let him arise, and 
assign, if he can, any other cause of the success and pros- 
perity of Philip. — " But," you reply, " what Athens may 
have lost in reputation abroad, she has gained in splendor 
at home. Was there ever a greater appearance of pros- 
perity; a greater face of plenty? Is not the city enlarged? 
Are not the streets better paved, houses repaired and 
beautified?" — Away with such trifles! Shall I be paid 
with counters? An old square new vamped up! a foun- 
tain! an aqueduct! are these acquisitions to brag of? 
Cast your eye upon the magistrate under whose ministry 
you boast these precious improvements. Behold the des- 
picable creature, raised, all at once, from dirt to opulence ; 
from the lowest obscurity to the highest honors. Have 
not some of these upstarts built private houses and seats, 
vying with the most sumptuous of our public palaces? 
And how have their fortunes and their power increased, 
but as the commonwealth has been ruined and impov- 
erished ? 



234 ANCIENT ELOQUENCE. 

To what are we to impute these disorders, and to what 
cause assign the decay of a state so powerful and flourish- 
ing in past times? The reason is plain. The servant is 
now become the master. The magistrate was then sub- 
servient to the people ; all honors, dignities, and prefer- 
ments, were disposed by the voice and favor of the people; 
but the magistrate, now, has usurped the right of the peo- 
ple, and exercises an arbitrary authority over his ancient 
and natural lord. You, miserable people! — the mean- 
while, without money, without friends, — from being the 
ruler, are become the servant; from being the master, the 
dependant: happy that these governors, into whose hands 
you have thus resigned your own power, are so good and 
so gracious as to continue your poor allowance to see 
plays. 

Believe me, Athenians, if recovering from this lethargy, 
you would assume the ancient freedom and spirit of your 
fathers — if you would be your own soldiers and your own 
commanders, confiding no longer your affairs in foreign or 
mercenary hands — if you would charge yourselves with 
your own defence, employing abroad, for the public, what 
you waste in unprofitable pleasures at home — the world 
might once more, behold you making a figure worthy of 
Athenians. — -" You would have us, then (you say), do ser- 
vice in our armies in our own persons ; and, for so doing, 
you would have the pensions we receive in time of peace, 
accepted as pay in time of war. Is it thus we are to un- 
derstand you?" — Yes, Athenians, 'tis my plain meaning. 
I would make it a standing rule, that no person, great or 
little, should be the better for the public money, who 
should grudge to employ it for the public service. Are 
we in peace? the public is charged with your subsistence. 
Are we in war, or under a necessity, as at this time, to 
enter into a war? let your gratitude oblige you to accept, 
as pay in defence of your benefactors, what you receive, 
in peace, as mere bounty. — Thus, without any innova- 
tion — without altering or abolishing any thing but perni- 
cious novelties, introduced for the encouragement of sloth 
and idleness — by converting only for the future, the same 
funds, for the use of the serviceable, which are spent, at 
present, upon the unprofitable, you may be well served in 
your armies — your troops regularly paid — -justice duly 



ANCIENT ELOQUENCE. 235 

administered — the public revenues reformed and increased 
— and every member of the commonwealth rendered use- 
ful to his country, according to his age and ability, with- 
out any further burden to the state. 

Tins, oh men of Athens! is what my duty prompted 
me to represent to you upon this occasion — May the 
gods inspire you to determine upon such measures as may 
be most expedient for the particular and general good of 
our country! 



Cicero against Verres. 

The time is come, Fathers, when that which has long 
been wished for towards allaying the envy your order has 
been subject to, and removing the imputations against 
trials, is effectually put in our power. An opinion has 
long prevailed, not only here at home, but likewise in fo- 
reign countries, both dangerous to you, and pernicious to 
the State — that in prosecutions, men of wealth are always 
safe, however clearly convicted. There is now to be 
brought upon his trial before you — to the confusion, I 
hope, of the propagators of this slanderous imputation — 
one, whose life and actions condemn him in the opinion 
of all impartial persons; but, who, according to his own 
reckoning and declared dependence upon his riches, is al- 
ready acquitted: I mean Caius Verres. I demand justice 
of you, Fathers, upon the robber of the public treasury, 
the oppressor of Asia Minor and Pamphylia, the invader 
of the rights and privileges of Romans, the scourge and 
curse of Sicily. If that sentence is passed upon him which 
his crimes deserve, our authority, Fathers, will be vener- 
able and sacred in the eyes of the public; but if his great 
riches should bias you in his favor, I shall still gain one 
point — to make it apparent to all the world, that what 
was wanting in this case was — not a criminal nor a pro- 
secutor — but justice and adequate punishment. 

To pass over the shameful irregularities of his youth, 
what does his qusestorship, the first public employment 
he held, what does it exhibit, but one continued scene of 
villanies? Cneius Carbo plundered of the public money 
by his own treasurer, a consul stripped and betrayed, an 
army deserted and reduced to want, a province robbed, 



236 ANCIENT ELOQUENCE. 

the civil and religious rights of a people violated. The 
employment he held in Asia Minor and Pamphylia, what 
did it produce but the ruin of those countries ? In which 
houses, cities, and temples were robbed by him. What 
was his conduct in his prsetorship here at home? Let the 
plundered temples, and public works neglected, that he might 
embezzle the money intended for carrying them on, bear 
witness. How did he discharge the office of a judge? 
Let those who suffered by his injustice answer. But his 
prsetorship in Sicily crowns all his works of wickedness, 
and finishes a lasting monument to his infamy. The mis- 
chiefs done by him in that unhappy country, during the 
three years of his iniquitous administration, are such, that 
many years, under the wisest and best of praetors, will not 
be sufficient to restore things to the condition in which he 
found them: for it is notorious, that, during the time of 
his tyranny, the Sicilians neither enjoyed the protection 
of their own original laws, of the regulations made for 
their benefit by the Roman Senate, upon their coming 
under the protection of the commonwealth, nor of the na- 
tural and unalienable rights of men. His nod has decided 
all causes in Sicily for these three years ; and his decisions 
have broke all law, all precedent, all right. The sums he 
has, by arbitrary taxes and unheard of impositions, ex- 
torted from the industrious poor, are not to be computed. 
The most faithful allies of the commonwealth have been 
treated as enemies ; Roman citizens have, like slaves, been 
put to death with tortures; the most atrocious criminals, 
for money, have been exempted from the deserved punish- 
ments; and men of the most unexceptionable characters, 
condemned and banished unheard. The harbors, tho suf- 
ficiently fortified, and the gates of strong towns, opened 
to pirates and ravagers ; the soldiery and sailors, belonging 
to a province under the protection of the commonwealth, 
starved to death; whole fleets, to the great detriment of 
the province, suffered to perish. The ancient monuments 
of either Sicilian or Roman greatness, the statues of he- 
roes and princes, carried off; and the temples stripped of 
the images. Having, by his iniquitous sentences, filled 
the prisons with the most industrious and deserving of the 
people, he then proceeded to order numbers of Roman 
citizens to be strangled in the jails; so that the exclama- 



ANCIENT ELOQUENCE. 237 

tion, " I am a citizen of Rome!" which has often, in the 
most distant regions, and among the most barbarous peo- 
ple, been a protection, was of no service to them, but, on 
the contrary, brought a speedier and more severe punish- 
ment upon them, 

I ask now, Verres, what you have to advance against 
this charge? Will you pretend to deny it? Will you 
pretend, that any thing false, that even any thing aggra- 
vated, is alleged against you? Had any prince, or any 
state committed the same outrage against the privileges of 
Roman citizens, should we not think we had sufficient 
ground for declaring immediate war against them? What 
punishment ought, then, to be inflicted upon a tyrannical 
and wicked praetor, who dared, at no greater distance than 
Sicily, within sight of the Italian coast, to put to the in- 
famous death of crucifixion, that unfortunate and innocent 
citizen, Publius Gavius Cosanus, only for his having as- 
serted his privilege of citizenship, and declared his inten- 
tion of appealing to the justice of his country against a 
cruel oppressor, who had unjustly confined him in prison 
at Syracuse, whence he had just made his escape? The 
unhappy man, arrested as he was going to embark for his 
native country, is brought before the wicked praetor. With 
eyes darting fury, and a countenance distorted with cru- 
elty, he orders the helpless victim of his rage to be strip- 
ped, and rods to be brought; accusing him, but without 
the least shadow of evidence, or even of suspicion, of hav- 
ing come to Sicily as a spy. It was in vain that the un- 
happy man cried out, "I am a Roman citizen; I have 
served under Lucius Precius, who is now at Panormus, 
and will attest my innocence.' , The blood-thirsty praetor, 
deaf to all he could urge in his own defence, ordered the 
infamous punishment to be inflicted. Thus, Fathers, was 
an innocent Roman citizen publicly mangled with scourg- 
ing; whilst the only words he uttered amidst his cruel 
sufferings were, "I am a Roman citizen!" With these 
he hoped to defend himself from violence and from in- 
famy. But of so little service was this privilege to him, 
that while he was thus asserting his citizenship, the order 
was given for his execution — for his execution upon the 
cross! — -Oh liberty! — Oh sound, once delightful to every 
Roman ear! — Oh sacred privilege of Roman citizenship! 



238 ANCIENT ELOQUENCE. 

— once sacred! — now trampled upon! But what then? — 
Is it come to this? Shall an inferior magistrate, a go- 
vernor, who holds his whole power of the Roman people, 
in a Roman province, within sight of Italy, bind, scourge, 
torture with fire and red-hot plates of iron, and at last put 
to the infamous death of the cross, a Roman citizen? 
Shall neither the cries of innocence expiring in agony, nor 
the tears of pitying spectators, nor the majesty of the Ro- 
man commonwealth, nor the fear of the justice of his 
country, restrain the licentious and wanton cruelty of a 
monster, who, in confidence of his riches, strikes at the 
root of all liberty, and sets mankind at defiance? 

I conclude with expressing my hopes, that your wisdom 
and justice, Fathers, will not, by suffering the most atro- 
cious and unexampled insolence of Caius Verres to escape 
the due punishment, leave room to apprehend the danger 
of a total subversion of authority, and introduction of 
general anarchy and confusion. 



Speech of Galgacus, General of the Caledonian Army, 

before engaging in Battle with the Romans. 
Countrymen and Fellow Soldiers! 

When I consider the cause, for which we have drawn 
our swords, and the necessity of striking an effectual blow, 
before we sheath them again, I feel joyful hopes arising 
in my mind, that, this day, an opening will be made for 
the restoration of British liberty, and for shaking off the 
infamous yoke of Roman slavery. Caledonia is yet free. 
The all-grasping power of Rome has not yet been able to 
seize our liberty. But it is only to be preserved by valor. 
You are not to expect, that you should escape the ravage 
of the general plunderers of mankind, by any sentiment of 
moderation in them. When the countries, which are more 
accessible, come to be subdued, they will then force their 
way into those which are harder to be overcome. And if 
they should conquer the dry land, over the whole known 
world, they will then think of carrying their arms beyond 
the ocean, to see whether there be not certain unknown 
regions, which they may attack, and reduce under subjec- 
tion to the Roman empire. For we see, that if a country 



ANCIENT ELOQUENCE. 239 

is thought to be powerful in arms, the Romans attack it, 
because the conquest will be glorious ; if inconsiderable in 
the military art, because the victory will be easy; if rich, 
they are drawn thither by the hope of plunder; if poor, 
by the desire of fame. The east and the west, the south 
and the north, the face of the whole earth, is the scene of 
their military achievements: the world itself is too little 
for their ambition and their avarice. They are the only 
nation ever known to be equally desirous of conquering a 
poor kingdom as a rich one. Their supreme joy seems to 
be ravishing, fighting, and shedding of blood; and when 
they have unpeopled a region, so that there are none left 
alive able to bear arms, they say, they have given peace 
to that country. 

Nature itself has peculiarly endeared, to all men, their 
wives and their children. But it is known to you, my 
Countrymen, that the conquered youth are daily draughted 
off, to supply the deficiencies in the Roman army. The 
wives, the sisters, and the daughters of the conquered, are 
either exposed to the violence, or at least corrupted by the 
arts of these cruel spoilers. The fruits of industry are 
plundered, to make up the tributes imposed by oppressive 
avarice. Britons sow their fields, and the greedy Romans 
reap them. Our very bodies are worn out in carrying on 
their military works; and our toils are rewarded by them 
with abuse and stripes. Those, who are born to slavery, 
are bought and maintained by their masters ; but this un- 
happy countiy pays for being enslaved, and feeds those 
who enslave it. And our portion of disgrace is the bit- 
terest, as the inhabitants of this island are the last who 
have fallen under the galling yoke. Our native bent a- 
gainst tyranny, is the offence which most sensibly irritates 
those lordly usurpers. Our distance from the seat of go- 
vernment, and our natural defence by the surrounding 
ocean, render us obnoxious to their suspicions; for they 
know, that Britons are born with an instinctive love of li- 
berty; and they conclude, that we must be naturally led 
to think of taking the advantage of our detached situa- 
tion, to disengage ourselves, one time or other, from their 
oppression. 

Thus, my Countrymen and Fellow-soldiers, suspected 
and hated, as we ever must be, by the Romans, there is 



240 ANCIENT ELOQUENCE. 

no prospect of our enjoying even a tolerable state of 
bondage under them. Let us, then, in the name of all that 
is sacred, and in defence of all that is dear to us, resolve 
to exert ourselves, if not for glory, at least for safety; if 
not in vindication of British honor, at least in defence of 
our lives. How near were the Brigantines to shaking off 
the yoke — led on too by a woman! they burnt a Roman 
settlement: they attacked the dreaded Roman legions in 
their camp. Had not their partial success drawn them 
into a fatal security, the business had been completed. 
And shall not we, of the Caledonian region, whose terri- 
tories are yet free, and whose strength is entire ; shall we 
not, my Fellow-soldiers, attempt somewhat, which may 
show these foreign ravagers, that they have more to do 
than they think of, before they be masters of the whole 
island? 

But, after all, who are those mighty Romans? Are 
they gods, or mortal men, like ourselves? Do we not see 
that they fall into the same errors and weaknesses as 
others? Does not peace effeminate them? Does not 
abundance debauch them? Do they not even go to ex- 
cess in the most unmanly vices? And can you imagine, 
that they who are remarkable for their vices, are likewise 
remarkable for their valor? What, then, do we dread? 
Shall I tell you the truth, my Fellow-soldiers? It is by 
means of our intestine divisions, that the Romans have 
gained so great advantages over us. They turn the mis- 
conduct of their enemies to their own praise. They boast 
of what they have done, and say nothing of what we might 
have done, had we been so wise as to unite against them. 
What is this formidable Roman army? Is it not com-* 
posed of a mixture of people from different countries; 
some more, some less, disposed to military achievements, 
some more, some less, capable of bearing fatigue and 
hardship ? They keep together while they are successful. 
Attack them with vigor: distress them : you will see them 
more disunited among themselves, than we are now. Can 
any one imagine, that Gauls, Germans, and, with shame, 
I must add, Britons who basely lent, for a time, their 
limbs, and their lives, to build up a foreign tyranny: can 
any one imagine that these are held together by senti- 
ments of fidelity or affection ? No, the only bond of union 



ANCIENT ELOQUENCE. 241 

among them is fear. And, whenever terror ceases to work 
upon the minds of that mixed multitude, they, who now 
fear, will then hate their tyrannical masters. On our side, 
there is eveiy possible incitement to valor. The Roman 
courage is not, as ours, inflamed by the thoughts of wives 
and children in danger of falling into the hands of the 
enemy. The Romans have no parents, as we have, to re- 
proach them, if they should desert their infirm old age. 
They have no country here to fight for. They are a 
motley collection of foreigners, in a land wholly unknown 
to them, cut off from their native country, hemmed in by 
the surrounding ocean, and given, I hope, a prey into our 
hands, without any possibility of escape. Let not the 
sound of the Roman name affright your ears ; nor let the 
glare of gold or silver, upon their armor, dazzle your 
eyes. It is not by gold, or silver, that men are either 
wounded or defended, tho they are rendered a richer prey 
to the conquerors. Let us boldly attack this disunited 
rabble. We shall find among themselves a reinforcement 
to our army. The degenerate Britons who are incorpor- 
ated into their forces, will, through shame of their coun- 
try's cause, deserted by them, quickly leave the Romans, 
and come over to us. The Gauls, remembering their 
former liberty, and that it was the Romans who deprived 
them of it, will forsake their tyrants, and join the assertors 
of freedom. The Germans, who remain in their army, 
will follow the example of their countrymen, the Usipii, 
who so lately deserted. And what will there be then to 
fear? A few half-garrisoned forts; a few municipal 
towns, inhabited by worn-out old men: discord univer- 
sally prevailing, occasioned by tyranny in those who com- 
mand, and obstinacy in those who should obey. On our 
side, an army united in the cause of their country, their 
wives, their children, their aged parents, their liberties, 
their lives. At the head of this army, I hope I do not 
offend against modesty in saying, there is a general, ready 
to exert all his abilities, such as they are, and to hazard 
his life in leading you to victory and to freedom. 

I conclude, my Countrymen and Fellow-soldiers, with 

putting you in mind, that, on your behaviour this day, 

depends your future enjoyment of peace and liberty, 

or your subjection to a tyrannical enemy, with all its 

y 



242 ANCIENT ELOQUENCE. 

grievous consequences. When, therefore, you come to 
engage — think of your ancestors — and think of your pos- 
terity. 



Hannibal to his Soldiers. 
I know not, soldiers, whether you or your prisoners be 
encompassed by fortune with the stricter bonds and ne- 
cessities. Two seas enclose you on the right and left; — 
not a ship to flee to for escaping. Before you is the Po, 
a river broader and more rapid than the Rhone; behind 
you are the Alps, over which, even when your numbers 
were undiminished, you were hardly able to force a pas- 
sage. — Here then, soldiers, you must either conquer or die, 
the very first hour you meet the enemy. But the same 
fortune which has laid you under the necessity of fighting, 
has set before your eyes those rewards of victory, than 
which no men are ever wont to wish for greater from the 
immortal gods. Should we by our valor recover only 
Sicily and Sardinia, which were ravished from our fathers, 
those would be no inconsiderable prizes. Yet, what are 
these? The wealth of Rome, whatever riches she has 
heaped together in the spoils of nations, all these, with the 
masters of them, will be yours. You have been long 
enough employed in driving the cattle upon the vast moun- 
tains of Lusitania and Celtiberia; you have hitherto met 
with no reward worthy of the labors and dangers you have 
undergone. The time is now come to reap the full re- 
compense of your toilsome marches over so many moun- 
tains and rivers, and through so many nations, all of them 
in arms. This is the place which fortune has appointed 
to be the limits of your labors; it is here that you will 
finish your glorious warfare, and receive an ample recom- 
pense of your completed service. For I would not have 
you imagine, that victory will be as difficult as the name 
of a Roman war is great and sounding. It has often hap- 
pened, that a despised enemy has given a bloody battle, 
and the most renowned kings and nations have by a small 
force been overthrown. And if you but take away the 
glitter of the Roman name, what is there, wherein they 
may stand in competition with you? For (to say nothing 
of your service in war for twenty years together with so 



ANCIENT ELOQUENCE. 243 

much valor and success) from the very pillars of Hercules, 
from the ocean, from the utmost bounds of the earth, 
through so many warlike nations of Spain and Gaul, are 
you not come hither victorious? And with whom are you 
now to fight? With raw soldiers, an undisciplined army, 
beaten, vanquished, besieged by the Gauls the very last 
summer, an army unknown to their leader, and unac- 
quainted with him. 

Or shall I, who was born I might almost say, but cer- 
tainly brought up, in the tent of my father, that most ex- 
cellent general; shall I, the conqueror of Spain and Gaul, 
and not only of the Alpine nations, but, which is greater 
yet, of the Alps themselves, shall I compare myself with 
this half-year captain? A captain before whom should 
one place the two armies without their ensigns, I am per- 
suaded he would not know to which of them he is consul? 
I esteem it no small advantage, soldiers, that there is not 
one among you, who has not often been an eye-witness of 
my exploits in war; not one of whose valor I myself have 
not been a spectator, so as to be able to name the times 
and places of his noble achievements ; that with soldiers, 
whom I have a thousand times praised and rewarded, and 
whose pupil I was before I became their general, I shall 
march against an army of men, strangers to one another. 

On what side soever I turn my eyes, I behold all full 
of courage and strength; a veteran infantry, a most gal- 
lant cavalry; you, my allies, most faithful and valiant; 
you, Carthaginians, whom not only your country's cause, 
but the justest anger impels to battle. The hope, the 
courage of assailants, is always greater than those who act 
upon the defensive. With hostile banners displayed, you 
are come down upon Italy; you bring the war. Grief, 
injuries, indignities, fire your minds, and spur you forward 
to revenge — First they demand me ; that I, your general, 
should be delivered up to them: next, all of you who had 
fought at the siege of Saguntum ; and we are to be put to 
death by the extremest tortures. Proud and cruel nation! 
Every thing must be yours, and at your disposal! You 
are to prescribe to us with whom we shall make war, with 
whom we shall make peace! You are to set us bounds; 
to shut us up within hills and rivers; but you — you are 
not to observe the limits which yourselves have fixed! 



244 ANCIENT ELOQUENCE. 

Pass not the Iberus. What next? Touch not the Sagun- 
tines; is Saguntum upon the Iberus? move not a step to- 
wards that city. Is it a small matter, then, that you have 
deprived us of our ancient possessions, Sicily and Sar- 
dinia? you would have Spain too? Well, we shall yield 
Spain; and then — you will pass into Africa! Will pass, 
did I say? This very year they ordered one of their 
consuls into Africa, the other into Spain. No, soldiers, 
there is nothing left for us but what we can vindicate with 
our swords. Come on, then, be men. The Romans may 
with more safety be cowards : they have their own country 
behind them, have places of refuge to flee to, and are se- 
cure from danger in the roads thither: but for you there 
is no middle fortune between death and victory. Let this 
be but well fixed in your minds, and once again, 1 say, 
you are conquerors. Livy, 



Caius Marius to the Romans. 

It is but too common, my countrymen, to observe a 
material difference between the behaviour of those who 
stand candidates for places of power and trust, before and 
after their obtaining them. They solicit them in one 
manner, and execute them in another. They set out with 
a great appearance of activity, humility, and moderation; 
and they quickly fall into sloth, pride, and avarice. It is 
undoubtedly no easy matter to discharge, to the general 
satisfaction, the duty of a supreme commander, in trouble- 
some times; — to cany on, with effect, an expensive war, 
and yet be frugal of the public money ; to oblige those to 
serve, whom it may be delicate to offend; to conduct, at 
the same time, a complicated variety of operations; to 
concert measures at home, answerable to the state of 
things abroad ; and to gain every valuable end, in spite of 
opposition from the envious, the factious, and the disaf- 
fected — to do all this, my countrymen, is more difficult 
than is generally thought. 

But besides the disadvantages which are common to 
me, with all others in eminent stations, my case is, in this 
respect peculiarly hard, that — whereas a commander of 
Patrician rank, if he is guilty of a neglect or breach of 



ANCIENT ELOQUENCE. 245 

duty, has his great connections, the antiquity of his family, 
the important services of his ancestors, and the multitudes 
he has, by power, engaged in his interest, to screen him 
from condign punishment, my whole safety depends upon 
myself; which renders it the more indispensably necessary 
for me to take care that my conduct be clear and unex- 
ceptionable. Besides, I am well aware, my countrymen, 
that the eye of the public is upon me ; and that, tho the 
impartial, who prefer the real advantage of the common- 
wealth to all other considerations, favor my pretensions, 
the Patricians want nothing so much as an occasion against 
me. It is therefore my fixed resolution to use my best 
endeavors, that you may not be disappointed in me, and 
that their indirect designs against me may be defeated. 

I have, from my youth, been familiar with toils and 
with dangers; I was faithful to your interest, my coun- 
trymen, when I served you for no reward but that of 
honor. It is not my design to betray you, now that you 
have conferred upon me a place of profit. You have com- 
mitted to my conduct the war against Jugurtha. The 
Patricians are offended at this. But where would be the 
wisdom of giving such a command to one of their honor- 
able body? A person of illustrious birth, of ancient fa- 
mily, of innumerable statues, but of no experience ! What 
service would his long line of dead ancestors, or his mul- 
tude of motionless statues, do his country in the day of 
battle? What could such a general do, but, in his trepi- 
dation and inexperience, have recourse to some inferior 
commander for direction in difficulties to which he was 
not himself equal? Thus, your Patrician general would 
in fact have a general over him ; so that the acting com- 
mander would still be a Plebeian. So true is this, coun- 
trymen, that I have myself known those who have been 
chosen consuls, begin then to read the history of their own 
country, of which, till that time, they were totally ignor- 
ant; that is, they first obtained the employment, and then 
bethought themselves of the qualifications necessary for the 
proper discharge of it. 

I submit to your judgment, Romans, on which side the 
advantage lies, when a comparison is made between Pa- 
trician haughtiness and Plebeian experience. The very 
actions which they have only read, I have partly seen, and 



246 ANCIENT ELOQUENCE. 

partly myself achieved. What they know by reading, I 
know by action. They are pleased to slight my mean 
birth: I despise their mean characters. Want of birth 
and fortune is the objection against me ; want of personal 
worth against them. But are not all men of the same 
species? Wliat can make a difference between one man 
and another, but the endowments of the mind? For my 
part, I shall always look upon the bravest man as the no- 
blest man. Suppose it were inquired of the fathers of such 
Patricians as Albinus and Bestia, whether, if they had 
their choice, they would desire sons of their character or 
of mine; what would they answer, but that they would 
wish the worthiest to be their sons? If the Patricians 
have reason to despise me, let them likewise despise their 
ancestors, whose nobility was the fruit of their virtue. Do 
they envy the honors bestowed upon me? let them envy 
likewise my labors, my abstinence, and the dangers I have 
undergone for my country, by which I have acquired them. 
But those worthless men lead such a life of inactivity, as 
if they despised any honors you can bestow, whilst they 
aspire to honors, as if they had deserved them by the most 
industrious virtue. They lay claim to the rewards of ac- 
tivity, for their having enjoyed the pleasures of luxury. 
Yet none can be more lavish than they are in praise of 
their ancestors. And they imagine they honor themselves 
by celebrating their forefathers; whereas they do the very 
contrary ; for as much as their ancestors were distinguished 
for their virtues, so much are they disgraced by their vices. 
The glory of ancestors casts a light indeed upon their pos- 
terity; but it only serves to show what the descendants 
are. It alike exhibits to public view their degeneracy and 
their worth. I own I cannot boast of the deeds of my 
forefathers; but I hope I may answer the cavils of the 
Patricians, by standing up in defence of what I have my- 
self done. 

Observe now, my countrymen, the injustice of the Pa- 
tricians. They arrogate to themselves honors on account 
of the exploits done by their forefathers, whilst they will 
not allow me the due praise for performing the very same 
sort of actions in my own person. He has no statues, 
they cry, of his family. He can trace no venerable line 
of ancestors What then? Is it matter of more praise 



MODERN ELOQUENCE. 247 

to disgrace one's illustrious ancestors, than to become il- 
lustrious by one's own good behaviour? What if I can 
show no statues of my family? I can show the standards, 
the armor, and the trappings which I have myself taken 
from the vanquished. I can show the scars of those wounds 
which I have received by facing the enemies of my coun- 
try. These are my statues. These are the honors I 
boast of. Not left me by inheritance as theirs ; but earned 
by toil, by abstinence, by valor; amidst clouds of dust and 
seas of blood; scenes of action where these effeminate 
Patricians, who endeavor, by indirect means, to depreciate 
me in your esteem, have never dared to show their faces. 



MODERN ELOQUENCE. 



Mr. Pitt on the African Slave Trade, April 27, 1792. 
Sir, — I lament that my efforts on this subject have 
hitherto not been successful, but I am consoled with the 
thought that the house has come to a resolution declarative 
of the infamy of this trade; that all parties have concurred 
in reprobating it; that even its advocates have been com- 
pelled to acknowledge its infamy. The question now is 
only the continuance of this abominable traffic, which even 
its friends think so intolerable, that it ought to be crushed. 
Jamaica has imported 150,000 negroes in the course of 
twenty years, and this is admitted to be only one-tenth of 
the trade. Was there ever, can there be, any thing be- 
yond the enormity of this infamous traffic? The very 
thought of it is beyond human endurance. It is allowed, 
however, that the trade is infamous, but the abolition of 
it is resolvable to a question of expediency; and then, 
when the trade is argued as a commercial case, its advo- 
cates, in order to continue it, desert even the principles of 
commerce. So that a traffic in the liberty, the blood, the 
life, of human beings, is not to have even the advantages 
of the common rules of arithmetic which govern all other 
commercial dealings! 



248 MODERN ELOQUENCE. 

The point now in dispute is only one year, as I under- 
stand; for the amendment proposes the year 1795 for the 
abolition, while the year 1796, is only contended for on 
the other side. As to those who are concerned in the 
trade, a year would not make much difference; but does 
it make no alteration to the unhappy slaves? It is true 
that, in the course of commercial concerns in general, it 
is said sometimes to be beneath the magnanimity of a man 
of honor to insist on a scrupulous exactness in his own 
favor upon a disputed item in accounts; but does it make 
any part of our magnanimity, to be exact in our own favor 
in the traffic of human blood? When a man gives up 
500/. or 1000/. against himself upon a complicated reckon- 
ing, he is called generous, and when he insists on it in his 
own favor, he is deemed niggardly; the common course, 
when parties disagree, is, what the vulgar phrase calls, 
"-to split the difference." If I could feel that I am to cal- 
culate upon the subject in this way, the side on which I 
should determine it, would be in favor of the unhappy suf- 
ferers, not of those who oppress them. But this one year 
is only to show the planters that Parliament is willing to 
be liberal to them. Sir, I do not understand compliment- 
ing away the lives of so many human beings. I do not 
understand the principle on which a few individuals are 
to be complimented, and their minds set at rest, at the 
expense and total sacrifice of the interest, the security, the 
happiness, of a whole quarter of the world, which, from 
our foul practices, has, for a vast length of time, been a 
scene of misery and horror, I say, because I feel, that 
every hour you continue this trade, you are guilty of an 
offence beyond your power to atone for; and, by your in- 
dulgence to the planters, thousands of human beings are 
to be miserable for ever. Notwithstanding the bill passed 
for regulating the middle passage, even now the loss of the 
trade is no less than ten per cent. ; such is still the mor- 
tality of this deleterious traffic! Every year in which you 
continue this abominable trade, you add thousands to the 
catalogue of miserable beings, which, if you could behold 
in a single instance, you would revolt with horror from the 
scene; but the size of the misery prevents you from be- 
holding it. Five hundred out of one thousand that are 
taken in this traffic, perish in this scene of horror; are 



MODERN ELOQUENCE. 249 

miserable victims brought to their graves : this is the ef- 
fect of this system of slavery. The remaining part of this 
miserable groupe are tainted both in body and in mind, 
covered with disease and infection, infecting the very earth 
on which they tread, and the air in which they breathe, 
carrying with them the seeds of pestilence and insurrec- 
tion to your island. Let me then ask, if I am improperly 
pressing upon the house a question, whether they can de- 
rive any advantage from these doubtful effects of a calcu- 
lation on the continuance of the traffic ; and whether they 
think that two will not be better than three years, for its 
continuance? I feel the infamy of the trade so heavily, 
the impolicy of it so clearly, that I am ashamed I have 
not been able to persuade the house to abandon it alto- 
gether at an instant, to pronounce with one voice its im- 
mediate and total abolition. There is no excuse for us, 
seeing this infernal traffic as we do. It is the very death 
of justice to utter a syllable in support of it. Sir, I know 
I state this subject with warmth; I feel it is impossible 
for me not to do so, or if it were, I should detest myself 
for the exercise of moderation. I cannot, without suffer- 
ing every feeling and eveiy passion that ought to rise in 
the cause of humanity to sleep within me, speak coolly on 
such a subject. Did they feel, as I think they ought, I 
am sure the decision of the house would be with us, for a 
total and immediate abolition of this abominable traffic 

As to the probability upon this subject, that in the year 
1795 the plantations will not be in a state fit to carry on 
business without the importation of fresh negroes, I will 
say, that there is no probability of that conclusion. They 
would be in a situation in 1795 to go on without im- 
portation — they would be in that situation in 1794 — they 
would be in that situation in 1793; for I have proved 
them to be in that situation in 1788. In short, unless I 
have misunderstood the subject, and unless some reason, 
much superior to any I have yet heard, be adduced, I 
shall think it the most singular act that ever was done by 
a deliberative assembly, to refuse to assent to the proposed 
amendment; it was by an express resolution declared to 
be the first object of their desire, the first object of their 
duty, and the first object of their inclination. 



250 MODERN ELOQUENCE. 



On the same Subject. 
Why ought the slave trade to be abolished? Because 
it is incurable injustice. How much stronger then is the 
argument for immediate than gradual abolition? By al- 
lowing it to continue even for one hour, do not my right 
honorable friends weaken — do not they desert their own 
argument of its injustice? If, on the ground of injustice, 
it ought to be abolished at last, why ought it not now? 
Why is injustice to be suffered to remain for a single 
hour? From what I hear without doors, it is evident 
that there is a general conviction entertained of its being 
far from just; and from that very conviction of its injus- 
tice, some men have been led, I fear, to the supposition, 
that the slave trade never could have been permitted to 
begin, but from some strong and irresistible necessity; a 
necessity, however, which, if it was fancied to exist at 
first, I have shown cannot be thought by any man what- 
ever to exist now. This plea of necessity, thus presumed, 
and presumed, as I suspect, from the circumstance of in- 
justice itself, has caused a sort of acquiescence in the con- 
tinuance of this evil. Men have been led to place it among 
the rank of those necessary evils, which are supposed to 
be the lot of human creatures, and to be permitted to fall 
upon some countries or individuals rather than upon others, 
by that Being, whose ways are inscrutable to us, and whose 
dispensations, it is conceived, we ought not to look into. 
The origin of evil is indeed a subject beyond the reach of 
human understandings; and the permission of it by the 
Supreme Being, is a subject into which it belongs not to 
us to inquire. But where the evil in question is a moral 
evil which a man can scrutinize, and where that evil has 
its origin with ourselves, let us not imagine that we can 
clear our consciences by this general, not to say irreligious 
and impious way of laying aside the question. If we reflect 
at all on this subject, we must see that every necessary 
evil supposes that some other and greater evil would be 
incurred were it removed ; I therefore desire to ask, what 
can be a greater evil, which can be stated to overbalance 
the one in question? I know of no evil that ever has ex- 
isted, nor can imagine any evil to exist, worse than the 
tearing of seventy or eighty thousand persons annually 



MODERN ELOQUENCE. 251 

from their native land, by a combination of the most ci- 
vilized nations, inhabiting the most enlightened part of 
the globe, but more especially under the sanction of the 
laws of that nation which calls herself thamost free and 
the most happy of them all. 

Reflect on these eighty thousand persons thus annually 
taken off! There is something in the horror of it, that 
surpasses all the bounds of imagination. Admitting that 
there exists in Africa something like to courts of justice, 
yet what an office of humiliation and meanness is it in us 
to take upon ourselves to carry into execution the partial, 
the cruel, iniquitous sentences of such courts, as if we also 
were strangers to all religion, and to the first principles of 
justice! But that country, it is said, has been in some 
degree civilized, and civilized by us. It is said, they have 
gained some knowledge of the principles of justice. What, 
Sir, have they gained principles of justice from us? Their 
civilization brought about by us!! Yes, we give them 
enough of our intercourse to convey to them the means, 
and to initiate them in the study of mutual destruction. 
We give them just enough of the forms of justice, to en- 
able them to add the pretext of legal trials to their other 
modes of perpetrating the most atrocious iniquity. We 
give them just enough of European improvements, to 
enable them the more effectually to turn Africa into a ra- 
vaged wilderness. Some evidences say, that the Africans 
are addicted to the practice of gambling; that they even 
sell their wives and children, and, ultimately, themselves. 
Are these then the legitimate source of slavery? Shall 
we pretend that we can thus acquire an honest right to 
exact the labor of these people ? Can we pretend that we 
have a right to cany away to distant regions, men of whom 
we know nothing by authentic inquiry, and of whom there 
is every reasonable presumption to think, that those who 
sell them to us, have no right to do so ? But the evil does 
not stop here. I feel that there is not time for me to make 
all the remarks which the subject deserves, and I refrain 
from attempting to enumerate half the dreadful conse- 
quences of this system. Do you think nothing of the ruin 
and the miseries in which so many other individuals, still 
remaining in Africa, are involved, in consequence of car- 
rying off so many myriads of people? Do you think no- 



252 MODERN ELOQUENCE. 

thing of their families which are left behind? of the con- 
nexions which are broken? of the friendships, attachments, 
and relationships, that are burst asunder? Do you think 
nothing of the miseries, in consequence, that are felt from 
generation to generation? of the privation of that happi- 
ness which might be communicated to them by the in- 
troduction of civilization, and of mental and moral im- 
provement? Pitt 



Lord Mansfield's Speech, in the House of Lords, on 
Preventing the Delays of Justice, by Privilege of Par- 
liament. — 1770. 

My Lords, — When I consider the importance of this 
bill to your Lordships, I am not surprised it has taken up 
so much of your consideration. It is a bill, indeed, of no 
common magnitude ; it is no less than to take away from 
two-thirds of the legislative body of this great kingdom, 
certain privileges and immunities of which they have been 
long possessed. Perhaps there is no situation the human 
mind can be placed in, that is so difficult and tiying, as 
when it is made a judge in its own cause. There is 
something in the breast of man, so attached to self, so 
tenacious of privileges once obtained, that, in such a situ- 
ation, either to discuss with impartiality, or decide with 
justice, has ever been held as the summit of all human 
virtue. The bill now in question puts your Lordships in 
this very predicament; and I doubt not but the wisdom 
of your decision will convince the world, that where self- 
interest and justice are in opposite scales, the latter will 
ever preponderate with your Lordships. 

This bill has been frequently proposed, and as frequently 
miscarried; but it was always lost in the" lower house. 
Little did I think, when it had passed the Commons, that 
it possibly could have met with such opposition here. 
Shall it be said, that you, my Lords, the grand council of 
the nation, the highest judicial and legislative body in the 
realm, endeavor to evade, by privilege, those very laws 
which you enforce on your fellow-subjects? Forbid it, 
Justice! — I am sure, were the noble lords as well ac- 
quainted as I am with but half the difficulties and delays 
occasioned in the courts of justice, under pretence of 



MODERN ELOQUENCE. 253 

privilege, they would not, nay, they could not, oppose 
this bill. 

I have waited with patience to hear what arguments 
might be urged against the bill, but I have waited in vain: 
the truth is, there is no argument that can weigh against 
it. The justice and expediency of the bill are such as 
render it self-evident. It is a proposition of that nature, 
that can neither be weakened by argument, nor entangled 
with sophistry. Much, indeed, has been said by some 
noble lords on the wisdom of our ancestors, and how dif- 
ferently they thought from us. They not only decreed 
that privilege should prevent all civil suits from proceed- 
ing during the sitting of Parliament, but likewise granted 
protection to the very servants of members. I shall say 
nothing on the wisdom of our ancestors ; it might perhaps 
appeal* invidious; that is not necessary in the present 
case. I shall only say, that the noble lords who natter 
themselves with the weight of that reflection, should re- 
member, that, as circumstances alter, things themselves 
should alter. Formerly, it was not so fashionable either 
for masters or servants to run in debt as it is at present. 
Formerly, we were not that great commercial nation we 
are at present; nor, formerly, were merchants and manu- 
facturers members of parliament as at present. The case 
now is very different: both merchants and manufacturers 
are, with great propriety, elected members of the lower 
house. Commerce having thus got into the legislative 
body of the kingdom, privilege must be done away. We 
all know, that the very soul and essence of trade are 
regular payments; and sad experience teaches us, that 
there are men, who will not make their regular payments 
without the compulsive powers of the law. The law 
then ought to be equally open to all: any exemption to 
particular men, or particular ranks of men, is, in a free 
and commercial country, a solecism of the grossest nature. 
I come now to speak upon what indeed I would have 
gladly avoided, had I not been particularly pointed at for 
the part I have taken in this bill. It has been said by a 
noble lord on my left hand, that I likewise am running 
the race of popularity. If the noble lord means, by 
popularity r , that applause bestowed by after ages on good 
and virtuous actions, I have long been struggling in that 
z 



254 MODERN ELOQUENCE. 

race; to what purpose, all-trying Time can alone deter- 
mine : but, if the noble lord means that mushroom popu- 
larity that is raised without merit, and lost without crime, 
he is much mistaken in his opinion. I defy the noble 
lord to point out a single action of my life, where the 
popularity of the times ever had the smallest influence on 
my determinations. I thank God I have a more perma- 
nent and steady rule for my conduct, — the dictates of my 
own breast. Those that have forgone that pleasing ad- 
viser, and given up their mind to be the slave of every 
popular impulse, I sincerely pity: I pity them still more, 
if their vanity leads them to mistake the shouts of a mob 
for the trumpet of fame. Experience might inform them, 
that many who have been saluted with the huzzas of a 
crowd one day, have received their execrations the next; 
and many, who, by the popularity of their times, have 
been held up as spotless patriots, have, nevertheless, ap- 
peared upon the historian's page, when truth has tri- 
umphed over delusion, the assassins of liberty. 

True liberty, in my opinion, can only exist when 
justice is equally administered to all — to the king and to 
tlie beggar. — Where is the justice, then, or where is the 
law, that protects a member of parliament more than any 
other man from the punishment due to his crimes? The 
laws of this country allow of no place, nor no employment, 
to be a sanctuary for crimes ; and where I have the honor 
to sit as judge, neither royal favor nor popular applause 
shall ever protect the guilty. 



Speech of Sir George Saville, on the Liberty of the 
Subject— 1779. 

Mr. Speaker, — I am really astonished that the learned 
gentleman is not ashamed to avow the reason he has as- 
signed for the concealment he has used, and reducing the 
house to act as so many midnight conspirators, who, under 
the color of devising measures for public preservation and 
national safety, have every appearance of plotting in the 
dark, at midnight, its destruction, coming like so many 
hired ruffians, with weapons concealed under their cloaks, 
to bury their poniards in its very bowels. Such an act 



MODERN ELOaUENCB. 255 

as that for impressing men into his majesty's service 
might be very necessary, but, I have many reasons to 
believe, not to the extent moved for; — but why bring it 
forward at this dark and silent hour> — when the clock 
has struck twelve, and most of the members retired home 
to their beds? Why, in God's name, not propose it early 
in the day, in a full house? 

The reason assigned for this assassinate mode of con- 
ducting public business, is, to the last degree, unfounded 
and unsatisfactory, " lest the public should be apprised of 
it." Has not the learned gentleman already told us, that 
the bill is to act retrospectively; that it is to commence 
on that melancholy, I fear, fatal day, on which the Spanish 
minister delivered the manifesto now on your table? Has 
he not farther informed us, that the ministry have not 
been unmindful of their duty ; for, they have exceeded all 
their former attacks on the constitution of their country? 
They have trampled on the laws, and have found an advo- 
cate to defend their conduct in the person of the learned 
gentleman, who has moved this extraordinary bill, in this 
very extraordinary manner. Is then the learned gentle- 
raan's love of his country not satisfied with the injuries 
inflicted on the most deserving part of the community, by 
robbing them of that protection which the laws have given 
them, and by breaking the national faith, which is the 
great pledge and security to every Englishman, for their 
due performance? Would the learned gentleman not 
let one father, one husband, one brother, or one child, 
escape, in this general scene of oppression and injustice ! 
Methinks, I hear the heartfelt shrieks of the miserable 
wife, this instant, piercing my ears, and entreating, in 
accents of rage and despair, the midnight ruffian not to 
drag from her side her tender and affectionate husband, 
the father of her children, and her only support! I think 
I hear the aged and helpless parent, in accents of sinking 
wo, misery, and distress, bewailing the loss of his dutiful 
and beloved son! I confess I am filled with horror at the 
various ills and miseries this instant inflicting in every 
part of these kingdoms, contrary to every principle of law, 
justice, and humanity: but the learned gentleman has a 
stomach for all this, and much more; for he says he has 
stood up, at this midnight hour, to propose a law, which, 



256 MODERN ELOQUENCE. 

if proposed in open clay, in a full house, might perhaps 
have this one consequence, that of procuring, for the per- 
sons to be affected by it, that personal security, by flight 
and concealment, which the laws of their country, and the 
assurance of public faith always supposed to accompany 
them, have been inadequate to. 



Extract from Grattaris Speech on the Address to His 
Majesty.— -1782. 
Mr. Speaker, — I have thrown the declaration of rights 
into the form of an humble address to the Throne ; and have 
added other matter that calls for redress. I have done this 
in a manner which I conceive respectful to the King, recon- 
ciling to the pride of England, and with all due tenacity of 
the rights and majesty of the Irish nation; and if I sink 
under this great argument, let my infirmity be attributed to 
any cause, rather than a want of zeal in your service. I have 
troubled you so often on the subject of your rights, that I 
have nothing to add; but am rather to admire by what 
miraculous means and steady virtue the people of Ireland 
have proceeded, until the faculty of the nation is now 
bound up to the great act of her own redemption. I am 
not very old, and yet I remember Ireland a child; I have 
followed her growth with anxious wishes, and beheld with 
astonishment the rapidity of her progress, from injuries to 
arms — from arms to liberty. I have seen her mind en- 
large, her maxims open, and a new order of days burst in 
upon her. You are not now afraid of the French, nor 
afraid of the English, nor afraid of one another. You are 
no longer an insolvent gentry, without privilege, except 
to tread upon a crest-fallen constituency, nor a constitu- 
ency with privilege, except to tread upon the Catholic 
body; you are now a united people, a nation manifesting 
itself to Europe in signal instances of glory. Liberty, in 
former times, was recovered by the quick feelings and 
rapid impulse of the populace, excited by some strong 
object presented to the senses. Such an object was the 
daughter of Virginius, sacrificed to virtue ; such the seven 
bishops, whose meagre and haggard looks expressed the 
rigor of their sufferings; but no history can produce an 



MODERN ELOQUENCE. 25/ 

instance of men like you, musing for years upon oppres- 
sion, and then, upon a determination of right, rescuing 
tlie land. 

Fortunately for us, England did not take the lead; her 
minister did not take the lead in the restoration of our 
rights; had England in the first instance ceded, you would 
have sunk under the weight of the obligation, and given 
back the acquisition with a sheepish gratitude; but the 
virtue, the pride of the people was our resource, and it is 
right that people should have a lofty conception of them- 
selves. It was necessary that Ireland should be her own 
redeemer, to form her mind as well as her constitution, 
and erect in her soul a vast image of herself, and a lofty 
sense of her own exaltation; other nations have trophies 
and records to elevate the human mind ; those outward 
and visible signs of glory, those monuments of their heroic 
ancestors, such as were wont to animate the ancient Greeks 
and Romans, and rouse them in their country's cause; but 
you had nothing to call forth the greatness of the land, 
except injuries, and therefore it is astonishing that you 
should have preserved your pride; but more astonishing 
that you should proceed with a temper seldom found 
among the injured, and a success never but with the vir- 
tuous. You have no trophies; but the liberty you trans- 
mit to your posterity is more than a trophy. I dwell the 
more on this part of the subject, because I hold it neces- 
sary to pour into the public mind a considerable portion 
of pride, acting up to a good national character, founded 
on a great transaction. What sets one nation above 
another, but the soul that dwells therein, that etherial 
fire® — for it is of no avail that the arm be strong, if the 
soul be not great.— Nor was this act of your redemption 
confined to any body of men; all have had a share in it; 
there is not a man that washes his firelock this night,- — 
there is not a grand jury — there is not an association — 
there is not a corps of volunteers — -there is not a meeting 
of their delegates, that is not a party to this acquisition, 
and pledged to support it to the last drop of his blood. 
It seems as if the subjects of Ireland had met at the altar, 
and communicated a national sacrament. Juries, cities, 
counties, commoners, nobles, volunteers, gradations, reli- 
gions, — a solid league, a rapid fire. 



258 MODERN ELOQUENCE, 



Extract from Grattaris Speech on the National 
Grievances. — July, 1788. 

The apostles were meek and inspired men — they went 
forth in humble guise, with naked feet, and brought to 
every man's door, in his own tongue, the true belief; their 
word prevailed against the potentates of the earth; and on 
the ruin of the barbaric pride, and pontine luxury, they 
placed the naked majesty of the Christian religion. This 
light was soon put down by its own ministers, and on its 
extinction, a beastly and pompous priesthood ascended. 
Political potentates, not Christian pastors — full of false 
zeal, full of worldly pride, and full of gluttony — empty of 
the true religion. To their flock oppressive — to their in- 
ferior clergy brutal — to their king abject, and to their God 
impudent and familiar; they stood on the altar, as a step- 
ping-stool to the throne, glozing in the ear of princes, 
whom they poisoned with crooked principles and heated 
advice, and were a faction against their king when they 
were not his slaves ; ever the dirt under his feet, or a 
poniard in his heart. — Their power went down, it burst 
of its own plethory, when a poor reformer, with the gospel 
in his hand, and in the inspired spirit of poverty, restored 
the Christian religion. — The same principle which intro- 
duced Christianity, guided reformation. The priesthood 
of Europe is not now what it once was ; their religion has 
increased, as their power has diminished. In these coun- 
tries, particularly for the most part, they are a mild order 
of men, with less dominion, and more piety, therefore 
their character may be described in a few words: — mo- 
rality, enlightened by letters, and exalted by religion. — 
Parliament is not a bigot — you are no sectary, no po- 
lemic; — it is your duty to unite all men, to manifest 
brotherly love and confidence to all men. The parental 
sentiment is the true principle of government. Men are 
ever finally disposed to be governed by the instrument of 
their happiness; — the mystery of government, would you 
learn it? — look on the gospel, and make the source of your 
redemption the rule of your authority; and, like the hen 
in the Scripture, expand your wings, and take in all your 
people. 

Let bigotry and schism, the zealot's fire, and the high- 



MODERN ELOQUENCE. 259 

priest's intolerance, through all their discordancy tremble, 
while an enlightened parliament, with arms of general 
protection, overarches the whole community, and roots 
the Protestant ascendancy in the sovereign mercy of its 
nature. Laws of coercion, perhaps necessary, certainly 
severe, you have put forth already, but your great engine 
of power, you have hitherto kept back; that engine which 
the pride of the bigot, nor the spite of the zealot, nor the 
ambition of the high, nor the arsenal of the conqueror, nor 
the inquisition, with its jaded rack and pale criminal, never 
thought of: — the engine which, armed with physical and 
moral blessings, comes forth, and overlays mankind with 
services,— the engine of redress:- — this is government, and 
this the only description of government worth your am- 
bition. Were I to raise you to a great act, I should not 
recur to the history of other nations ; I would recite your 
own acts, and set you in emulation with yourselves. Do 
you remember that night, when you gave your country a 
free trade, and with your hands opened all her harbors? — 
That night when you gave her a free constitution, and 
broke the chains of a century — while England stood 
eclipsed by your glory, and your Island rose, as it were, 
from its bed, and got nearer to the sun? In the arts that 
polish life — the inventions that accommodate, the manu- 
factures that adorn it — you will be for many years inferior 
to some other parts of Europe ; but to nurse a growing 
people — to mature a struggling, tho hardy community, to 
mould, to multiply, to consolidate, to inspire, and to exalt 
a young nation; be these your barbarous accomplishments! 



Extract from Burkes Speech on the Debts of the Nabob 
ofArcot. — February 28, 1785. 
Among the victims to this magnificent plan of universal 
plunder, worthy of the heroic avarice of the projectors, 
you have all heard (and he has made himself to be well 
remembered) of an Indian chief called Hyder Aii Khan. 
This man possessed the western, as the company under 
the name of the nabob of Arcot does the eastern, division 
of the Carnatic. It was among the leading measures in 
the design of this cabal (according to their own emphatic 



260 MODERN ELOQUENCE. 

language), to extirpate this Hyder Ali. They declared 
the nabob of Arcot to be his sovereign, and himself to be 
a rebel, and publicly invested their instrument with the 
sovereignty of the kingdom of Mysore. But their victim 
was not of the passive kind. They were soon obliged to 
conclude a treaty of peace and close alliance with this re- 
bel, at the gates of Madras. Both before and since this 
treaty, every principle of policy pointed out this power as 
a natural alliance ; and on his part, it was courted by every 
sort of amicable office. But the cabinet council of Eng- 
lish creditors would not suffer their nabob of Arcot to sign 
the treaty, nor even to give to a prince, at least his equal, 
the ordinary titles of respect and courtesy. From that 
time forward, a continued plot was earned on within the 
divan, black and white, of the nabob of Arcot, for the 
destruction of Hyder Ali. As to the outward members 
of the double, or rather treble government of Madras, 
which had signed the treaty, they were always prevented 
by some over-ruling influence (which they do not describe, 
but which cannot be misunderstood) from performing what 
justice and interest combined so evidently to enforce. — 
When at length Hyder Ali found that he had to do with 
men who either would sign no convention, or whom no 
treaty, and no signature could bind, and who were the 
determined enemies of human intercourse itself, he decreed 
to make a country possessed by their incorrigible and pre- 
destinated criminals, a memorable example to mankind. — - 
He resolved, in the gloomy recesses of a mind capacious 
of such things, to leave the whole Carnatic an everlasting 
monument of his vengeance, and to put perpetual desola- 
tion as a barrier between him and those, against whom the 
faith which holds the moral elements of the world together, 
was no protection. — He became at length so confident of 
his force, so collected in his might, that he made no secret 
whatever of his dreadful resolution. — Having terminated 
his disputes with every enemy, and every rival, who buried 
their mutual animosities in their common detestation against 
the creditors of the nabob of Arcot — he drew from every 
quarter, whatever a savage ferocity could add to his new 
rudiments in the arts of distress, and compounding all the 
materials of fury, havoc, and desolation, into one black 
cloud, he hung for a while on the declivities of the moun- 



MODERN ELOQUENCE. 261 

tains Whilst the authors of all these evils were idly and 

stupidly gazing on this menacing meteor, which blackened 
all their horizon — it suddenly burst, and poured down the 
whole of its contents on the plains of the Carnatic. — Then 
ensued a scene of woe, the like of which no eye had seen, 
no heart conceived, and which no tongue can adequately 
tell. All the horrors of war before known or heard of, 
were mercy to that new havoc. — A storm of universal fire 
blasted every field, consumed every house, and destroyed 
every temple. — The miserable inhabitants flying from their 
flaming villages, in part were slaughtered ; others, without 
regard to sex, to age, to the respect of rank, or sacredness 
of function, fathers torn from children, husbands from wives, 
enveloped in a whirlwind of cavalry, and amidst the goad- 
ing spears of drivers, and the trampling of pursuing horses, 
were swept into captivity, in an unknown and hostile 

land Those who were able to evade this tempest, fled to 

the walled cities. — But escaping from fire, sword, and 
exile, they fell into 

" The jaws of Famine. ' ' 

The alms of the settlement, in this dreadful exigency, were 
certainly liberal; — and all was done by charity, that pri- 
vate charity could do—but it was a people in beggary; it 
was a nation that stretched out its hands for food. — For 
months together these creatures of sufferance, whose very 
excess and luxury in their most plenteous days, had fallen 
short of the allowance of our austerest fasts, silent, patient, 
resigned, without sedition, or disturbance, almost without 
complaint, perished by a hundred a-day in the streets of 
Madras; — every day seventy at least laid their bodies in 
the streets, or on the glacis of Tanjore, and expired of 
famine in the granary of India. — I was going to awake 
your justice towards this unhappy part of our fellow-citi- 
zens, by bringing before you some of the circumstances of 
this plague of hunger. — Of all the calamities which beset 
and waylay the life of man, this comes the nearest to the 
heart, and is that wherein the proudest of us all feels him- 
self to be nothing more than he is ; but I find myself un- 
able to manage it with decorum; these details are of a 
species of horror so nauseous and disgusting; they are so 
degrading to the sufferers and to the hearer; they are so 
humiliating to human nature itself, that, on better thoughts. 



262 MODERN ELOQUENCE. 

I find it advisable to throw a pall over this hideous ob- 
ject, and leave it to your general conceptions. 



•ywxwwww^ 



On Mercenary Informers* 
Gentlemen : — Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny. 
In such a countiy as this, they are of all bad things the 
worst — worse by far than any where else ; and they de- 
rive a particular malignity even from the wisdom and 
soundness of the rest of our institutions. For very obvi- 
ous reasons, you cannot trust the crown with a dispensing 
power over any of your laws. However, a government, 
be it as it may, will, in the exercise of a discretionary 
power, discriminate times and persons; and will not or- 
dinarily pursue any man, when its own safety is not con- 
cerned. A mercenary informer knows no distinction. 
Under such a system, the obnoxious people are slaves, 
not only to the government, but they live at the mercy of 
every individual; they are at once the slaves of the whole 
community, and of every part of it; and the worst and 
most unmerciful men are those on whose goodness they 
most depend. In this situation, men not only shrink from 
the frowns of a stern magistrate ; but they are obliged to 
fly from their very species. The seeds of destruction are 
sown in civil intercourse, in social habitudes. The blood 
of wholesome kindred is infected. Their tables and beds 
are surrounded with snares. All the means given by Pro- 
vidence to make life safe and comfortable, are perverted 
into instruments of terror and torment. This species of 
universal subserviency, that makes the very servant who 
waits behind your chair, the arbiter of your life and for- 
tune, has such a tendency to degrade and debase mankind, 
and to deprive them of that assured and liberal state of 
mind, which alone can make us what we ought to be, that 
I vow to God I would sooner bring myself to put a man 
to immediate death for opinions I disliked, and so to get 
rid of the man and his opinions at once, than to fret him 
with a feverish being, tainted with the jail-distemper of a 
contagious servitude to keep him above ground, an ani- 
mated mass of putrefaction, corrupted himself, and cor- 
rupting all about him. Burke. 



MODERN ELOQUENCE. 263 

Quarrel between Flood and Grattan. 

In a debate in the Irish Parliament, October 28, 1783, 
on a resolution for declaring that the condition of the 
kingdom required every practicable retrenchment consist- 
ent with the honor and safety of the state, Mr. Grattan 
made some strong personal allusions to Mr. Flood, who 
supported the resolution, accusing him particularly of hav- 
ing affected an indisposition, and being guilty of apostacy ; 
Mr. Flood rose, and replied in these words: 

" The right honorable member can have no doubt of 
the propriety of my saying a word in reply to what he has 
delivered. Every member of the house can bear witness 
of the infirmity I mentioned, and therefore it required but 
little candor, to make a nocturnal attack upon that in- 
firmity. But I am not afraid of the right honourable mem- 
ber; I will meet him any where, or upon any ground, by 
night or by day. I should stand poorly in my own esti- 
mation and in my country's opinion, if I did not stand far 
above him. I do not come here dressed in a rich ward- 
robe of words to delude the people. I am not one who 
has promised repeatedly to bring in a bill of rights, yet 
does not bring in that bill, or permit any other person to 
do it. I am not one who threatened to impeach the Chief 
Justice of the King's Bench, and afterwards shrunk from 
the charge. I am not one who would come at midnight, 
and attempt a vote of this house to stifle the people, which 
my egregious folly had raised against me. I am not the 
gentleman who subsists upon your accounts. I am not the 
mendicant patriot who was bought by his countiy for a 
sum of money, and then sold my country for prompt pay- 
ment (alluding to the grant of £100,000 to Mr Grattan 
for his public services, the half of which sum he accepted). 
I never was bought by the people, nor ever sold them. 
The gentleman says he never apostatized; but I say I 
never changed my principles. Let every man say the 
same, and let the people believe it if they can. 

"I have now done, and give me leave to say, if the 
gentleman enters often into this kind of colloquy with 
me, he will not have much to boast of at the end of the 
session." 

Mr Grattan. — " In respect to the house, I could wish 
to avoid personality, but I must request liberty to explain 



264 MODERN ELOQUENCE. 

some circumstances alluded to by the honorable mem- 
ber." After making this explanation, he proceeded. " It 
is not the slander of the bad tongue of a bad character that 
can defame me. I maintain my reputation in public and 
in private life ; no man who has not a bad character, can 
say I ever deceived him; no country has called me cheat. 
I will suppose a public character — a man not, of course, in 
the house, but who formerly might have been here. I will 
suppose it was his constant practice to abuse every man 
who differed from him, and to betray every man who 
trusted him. I will suppose him active ; I will begin from 
his cradle, and divide his life into three stages. In the 
first, he was intemperate; in the second, corrupt; and in 
the third, seditious* Suppose him a great egotist; his 
honor equal to his oath; and I will stop him, and say, 
< Sir, your talents are not so great as your life is infamous ; 
you were silent for years, and you were silent for money; 
when affairs of consequence to the nation were debating, 
you might be seen passing by these doors like a guilty 
spirit just waiting for the moment of putting the question, 
that you might pop in and give your venal vote; or you 
might be seen hovering over the dome like an ill-omened 
bird of night, with sepulchral notes, with cadaverous as- 
pect, and broken beak (alluding to a personal defect of 
Mr Flood's), ready to stoop and pounce upon your prey. 
You can be trusted by no man; the people cannot trust 
you; the ministers cannot trust you; you deal out the 
most impartial treachery to both ; you tell the nation it is 
ruined by other men, when it is sold by yourself; you fled 
from the embargo; you fled from the mutiny bill; you 
fled from the sugar bill. I therefore tell you in the face 
of your country, before all the world, and to your very 
beard, you are not an honest ?nan.' " 

Mr. Flood. — " I have heard very extraordinary language 
indeed, and I challenge any man to say that any thing half 
so unwarrantable was ever uttered in this house. The right 
honorable gentleman set out with declaring, he did not 
wish to use personality; and no sooner had he opened his 
mouth, than forth issued all the venom that ingenuity and 
disappointed vanity for two years brooding over corrup- 
tion has been able to produce. But taint my public char- 
acter it cannot; four and twenty years employed in your 



MODERN ELOQUENCE. 265 

service lias established that; and as to my private, let that 
be learned from my friends, and those under my own roof. 
To these I appeal, and this appeal I boldly make with an 
utter contempt of insinuations, false as they are Uliberal;" 
Mr. Flood was proceeding, when the Speaker rose, and 
called for the support of the house to keep the gentlemen 
in order. 

Mr. John Burke then moved, that the gentlemen might 
be made to promise that nothing farther should pass be- 
tween them; and this being resolved, the house was 
cleared. But in the mean time, both Mr. Flood and Mr. 
Grattan had disappeared.* 



Invective against Hastings. 
Had a stranger, at this time, gone into the province of 
Oude, ignorant of what had happened since the death of 
Sujah Dowla, that man, who, with a savage heart, had 
still great lines of character, and who, with all his ferocity 
in war, had still, with a cultivating hand, preserved to his 
country the riches which it derived from benignant skies 
and a prolific soil — if this stranger, ignorant of all that had 
happened in the short interval, and observing the wide 
and general devastation, and all the horrors of the scene — 
of plains unclothed and brown — of vegetables burned up 
and extinguished — of villages depopulated, and in ruins — 
of temples unroofed and perishing — of reservoirs broken 
down and dry, — he would naturally inquire, what war has 
thus laid waste the fertile fields of tins once beautiful and 
opulent country — what civil dissentions have happened, 
thus to tear asunder and separate the happy societies that 
once possessed those villages — what disputed succession — 
what religious rage has, with unholy violence, demolished 
those temples, and disturbed fervent, but unobtruding piety, 
in the exercise of its duties? — What merciless enemy has 



* Next morning, Mr. Flood and Mr. Grattan were brought in cus- 
tody before Lord Chief Justice Annaly, who bound them both over to 
keep the peace, in recognizances of £20,000 each. They had, attended 
by their respective friends, almost reached the ground appointed for a 
serious interview, when they were arrested by officers whom the magi- 
strates had despatched after them. 

A A 



266 MODERN ELOQUENCE. 

thus spread the horrors of fire and sword — what severe 
visitation of Providence has dried up the fountain, and 
taken from the face of the earth every vestige of verdure ? 
— Or, rather, what monsters have stalked over the country, 
tainting and poisoning, with pestiferous breath, what the 
voracious appetite could not devour? To such questions, 
what must be the answer? No wars have ravaged these 
lands, and depopulated these villages — no civil discords 
have been felt — no disputed succession — no religious rage 
— no merciless enemy — no affliction of Providence, which, 
while it scourged for the moment, cut off the sources of 
resuscitation — no voracious and poisoning monsters — no, 
all this has been accomplished by the friendship, genero- 
sity, and kindness of the English nation. They have em- 
braced us with their protecting arms, and, lo ! those are the 
fruits of their alliance. What, then, shall we be told, that 
under such circumstances, the exasperated feelings of a 
whole people thus goaded and spurred on to clamor and 
resistance, were excited by the poor and feeble influence 
of the Begums! When we hear the description of the paiv 
oxysm, fever, and delirium, into which despair had thrown 
the wretched natives, when on the banks of the polluted 
Ganges, panting for death, they tore more widely open 
the lips of their gaping wounds, to accelerate their disso- 
lution, and while their blood was issuing, presented their 
ghastly eyes to Heaven, breathing their last and fervent 
prayer, that the dry earth might not be suffered to drink 
their blood, but that it might rise up to the throne of God, 
and rouse the eternal Providence to avenge the wrongs of 
their country; will it be said that this was brought about 
by the incantations of these Begums in their secluded 
Zenana? or that they could inspire this enthusiasm and 
this despair into the breasts of a people who felt no griev- 
ance, and had suffered no torture? What motive, then, 
could have such influence in their bosom? What motive? 
That which nature, the common parent, plants in the bosom 
of man, and which, tho it may be less active in the Indian 
than in the Englishman, is still congenial with, and makes 
part of his being — that feeling which tells him, that man 
was never made to be the property of man; but that when 
through pride and insolence of power, one human creature 
dares to tyrannise over another, it is a power usurped, 



MODERN ELOQUENCE. 267 

and resistance is a duty — that feeling which tells him, that 
all power is delegated for the good, not for the injury of 
the people, and that when it is converted from the original 
purpose, the compact is broken, and the right is to be re- 
sumed — that principle which tells him, that resistance to 
power usurped is not merely a duty which he owes to 
himself, and to his neighbor, but a duty which he owes to 
his God, in asserting and maintaining the rank which he 
gave him in the creation! — to that common God, who, 
where he gives the form of man, whatever may be the 
complexion, gives also the feelings and the rights of man — 
that principle, which neither the rudeness of ignorance 
can stifle, nor the enervation of refinement extinguish! — 
that principle, which makes it base for a man to suffer 
when he ought to act, which, tending to preserve to the 
species the original designations of providence, spurns at 
the arrogant distinctions of man, and vindicates the inde- 
pendent quality of his race. Sheridan, 



Extract from Currans Speech, in Defence of 
Mr. Finnerty — December 22, 1797. 
Gentlemen, — Mr. Attorney- General has been pleased 
to open another battery upon this publication, which I do 
trust I shall silence, unless I flatter myself too much in 
supposing that hitherto my resistance has not been utterly 
unsuccessful. He abuses it for the foul and insolent fa- 
miliarity of its address. I do clearly understand his idea; 
he considers the freedom of the press to be the license of 
offering that paltry adulation which no man ought to stoop 
to utter or to hear; he supposes the freedom of the press 
ought to be like the freedom of a king's jester, who, in- 
stead of reproving the faults of which majesty ought to be 
ashamed, is base and cunning enough, under the mask of 
servile and adulatory censure, to stroke down and pamper 
those vices of which it is foolish enough to be vain. — -He 
would not have the press presume to tell the viceroy, that 
the prerogative of mercy is a trust for the benefit of the 
subject, and not a gaudy feather stuck into the diadem to 
shake in the wind, and, by the waving of the gorgeous 
plumage, to amuse the vanity of the wearer. He would 



268 MODERN ELOQUENCE. 

not have it to say to him, that the discretion of the crown 
as to mercy, is like the discretion of a court of justice as 
to law, and that in the one case, as well as in the other, 
wherever the propriety of the exercise of it appears, it is 
equally a matter of right. He would have the press all 
fierceness to the people, and all sycophancy to power; he 
would have it consider the mad and phrenetic depopula- 
tions of authority like the awful and inscrutable dispensa- 
tions of providence, and say to the unfeeling and despotic 
spoiler, in the blasphemed and insulted language of religious 
resignation — " The Lord hath given, and the Lord hath 
taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord!!!" But 
let me condense the generality of the learned gentleman's 
invective, into questions that you can conceive. Does he 
mean, that the air of this publication is rustic and un- 
courtly? Does he mean, that when Marcus presumed to 
ascend the steps of the castle, and to address the viceroy, 
he did not turn out his toes as he ought to have done? 
But, gentlemen, you are not a jury of dancing-masters : — 
or does the learned gentleman mean, that the language is 
coarse and vulgar? If this be his complaint, my client has 
but a poor advocate. I do not pretend to be a mighty 
grammarian, or a formidable critic, but I would beg leave 
to suggest to you, in serious humility, that a free press can 
be supported only by the ardor of men who feel the prompt- 
ing sting of real or supposed capacity; who write from the 
enthusiasm of virtue, or the ambition of praise, and over 
whom, if you exercise the rigor of a grammatical censor- 
ship, you will inspire them with as mean an opinion of 
your integrity as of your wisdom, and inevitably drive them 
from their post — and if you do, rely upon it, you will re- 
duce the spirit of publication, and with it the press of this 
country, to what it for a long interval has been, the re- 
gister of births, and fairs, and funerals, and the general 
abuse of the people and their friends. 

But, gentlemen, in order to bring this charge of inso- 
lence and vulgarity to the test, let me ask you, whether 
you know of any language that could have adequately 
described the idea of mercy denied, where it ought to have 
been granted, or of any phrase vigorous enough to convey 
the indignation which an honest man would have felt upon 
such a subject? Let me beg of you for a moment to sup- 



MODERN ELOQUENCE. 269 

pose that any one of you had been the writer of this very 
severe expostulation with the viceroy, and that you had 
been the witness of the whole progress of this never-to- 
be-forgotten catastrophe. Let me suppose, that you had 
known the charge upon which Mr. Orr was apprehended, 
— the charge of abjuring that bigotry which had torn and 
disgraced his country, of pledging himself to restore the 
people of his country to their place in the constitution, 
and of binding himself never to be the betrayer of his fel- 
low-laborers in that enterprise ; that you had seen him, on 
that charge, removed from his industry, and confined in a 
jail; that, through the slow and lingering progress of twelve 
tedious months, you had seen him confined in a dungeon, 
shut out from the common use of air and of his own limbs; 
that, day after day, you had marked the unhappy captive 
cheered by no sound, but the cries of his family, or the 
clinking of chains ; that you had seen him at last brought 
to his trial; that you had seen the vile and perjured in- 
former deposing against his life; that you had seen the 
drunken, and worn out, and terrified jury, give in a ver- 
dict of death; that you had seen the same jury, when their 
returning sSbriety had brought back their consciences, 
prostrate themselves before the humanity of the bench, 
and pray that the mercy of the crown might save their 
characters from the reproach of an involuntary crime; 
their consciences from the torture of eternal self-condem- 
nation; and their souls from the indelible stain of innocent 
blood. Let me suppose, that you had seen the respite 
given, and that contrite and honest recommendation trans- 
mitted to that seat where mercy was presumed to dwell; 
that new and before unheard of crimes are discovered 
against the informer; that the royal mercy seems to relent, 
and that a new respite is sent to the prisoner; that time 
is taken, as the learned counsel for the crown has expressed 
it, to see whether mercy could be extended or not ! that, 
after that period of lingering deliberation passed, a third 
respite is transmitted ; that the unhappy captive himself 
feels the cheering hope of being restored to a family that 
he had adored, to a character that he had never stained, 
and to a country that he had ever loved ; that you had seen 
his wife and children upon their knees, giving those tears 
to gratitude, which their locked and frozen hearts could 



270 MODERN ELOQUENCE. 

not give to anguish and despair, and imploring the bless- 
ings of eternal providence upon his head, who had graci- 
ously spared the father, and restored him to his children; 
that you had seen the olive branch sent into his little ark, 
but no sign that the waters had subsided. "Alas! nor 
wife, nor children, more shall he behold, nor friends, nor 
sacred home !" No seraph mercy unbars his dungeon, and 
leads him forth to light and life ; but the minister of death 
hurries him to the scene of suffering and of shame ; where, 
unmoved by the hostile array of artillery and armed men 
collected together, to secure, or' to insult, or to disturb 
him, he dies with a solemn declaration of his innocence, 
and utters his last breath in a prayer for the liberty of his 
country. Let me now ask you, if any of you had ad- 
dressed the public ear upon so foul and monstrous a sub- 
ject, in what language would you have conveyed the feel- 
ings of horror and indignation? — would you have stooped 
to the meanness of qualified complaint? — would you have 
been mean enough? — but I entreat your forgiveness — I 
do not think meanly of you; had I thought so meanly of 
you, I could not suffer my mind to commune with you as 
it has done; had I thought you that base and vile instru- 
ment, attuned by hope and by fear into discord and false- 
hood, from whose vulgar string, no groan of suffering could 
vibrate, no voice of integrity or honor could speak, let me 
honestly tell you, I should have scorned to fling my hand 
across it; I should have left it to a fitter minstrel: if I do 
not therefore grossly en- in my opinion of you, I could use 
no language on such a subject as this, that must not lag 
behind the rapidity of your feelings, and that would not 
disgrace those feelings, if it attempted to describe them. 

Gentlemen, I am not unconscious that the learned coun- 
sel for the crown seemed to address you with a confidence 
of a very different kind; he seemed to expect from you a 
kind lind respectful sympathy with the feelings of the 
castle, and with the griefs of chided authority. Perhaps, 
gentlemen, he may know you better than I do; if he does, 
he has spoken as he ought; he has been right in telling 
you, that if the reprobation of this writer is weak, it is 
because his genius could not make it stronger; he has been 
right in telling you, that his language has not been braided 
and festooned as elegantly as it might, that he has not 



MODERN ELOQUENCE. 271 

pinched the miserable plaits of his phraseology, nor placed 
his patches and feathers with that correctness of millinery 
which became so exalted a person. If you agree with 
him, gentlemen of the jury, if you think that the man, 
who ventures, at the hazard of his own life, to rescue from 
the deep the drowning honor of his country, must not 
presume on the guilty familiarity of plucking it up by the 
locks, I have no more to say; do a courteous thing. Up- 
right and honest jurors, find a civil and obliging verdict 
against the printer! And when you have done so, march 
through the ranks of your fellow-citizens to your own 
homes, and bear their looks as you pass along; retire to 
the bosom of your families and your children, and when 
you are presiding over the morality of the parental board, 
tell those infants who are to be the future men of Ireland, 
the history of this day. Form their young minds by your 
precepts, and confirm those precepts by your own exam* 
pie ; teach them how discreetly allegiance may be perjured 
on the table, or loyalty be forsworn in the jury-box; and 
when you have done so, tell them the story of Orr; tell 
them of his captivity, of his children, of his crime, of his 
hopes, of his disappointments, of his courage, and of his 
death ; and when you find your little hearers hanging on 
your lips, — when you see their little eyes overflow with 
the tears of sympathy and sorrow, and their young hearts 
bursting with the pangs of anticipated orphanage, tell them 
that you had the boldness and the justice to stigmatise the 
monster who had dared to publish the transaction! 

I tell you, gentlemen of the jury, it is not with respect 
to Mr. Orr alone that your verdict is now sought; you are 
called upon on your oaths to say, that the government is 
wise and merciful, that the people are prosperous and 
happy, that military law ought to be continued, that the 
British constitution could not with safety be restored to 
this country, and that the statements of a contrary import, 
by your advocates in either country, were libellous and 
false. I tell you these are the questions; and I ask you, 
can you have the front to give the expected answer, in the 
face of a community who know the country as well as you 
do? Let me ask you, how could you reconcile with such 
a verdict ; the jails, the tenders, the gibbets, the confla- 
grations, the murders, the proclamations, that we hear of 



2/2 MODERN ELOQUENCE. 

every day in the streets, and see every day in the country? 
What are the processions of the learned counsel himself 
circuit after circuit? Merciful God! what is the state of 
Ireland, and where shall you find the wretched inhabitant 
of this land! You may find him perhaps in jail, the only 
place of security, — I had almost said, of ordinary habita- 
tion: you may see him flying by the conflagration of his 
own dwelling; or you may find his bones bleaching on the 
green fields of his countiy; or he may be found tossing 
upon the surface of the ocean, and mingling his groans 
with those tempests, less savage than his persecutors, that 
drift him to a returnless distance from his family and his 
home. And yet with these facts ringing in the ears, and 
staring in the face of the prosecutors, you are called upon 
to say, on your oaths, that these facts do not exist. You 
are called upon, in defiance of shame, of truth, of honor, 
to deny the sufferings under which you groan, and to 
flatter the persecution that tramples you under foot. 

Gentlemen, before we part, let me once more remind 
you of your awful situation. — The law upon this subject 
gives you supreme dominion. Hope not for much assist- 
ance from his lordship. On such occasions, perhaps the 
duty of the court is, to be cold and neutral. I cannot but 
admire the dignity he has supported during this trial; I 
am grateful for his patience. But let me tell you, it is 
not his province to fan the sacred flame of patriotism in 
the jury-box; as he has borne with the little extravagan- 
cies of the law, do you bear with the little failings of the 
press. Let me therefore remind you, that, tho the day 
may soon come when our ashes shall be scattered before 
the winds of heaven, the memory of what you do cannot 
die; it will carry down to your posterity, your honor or 
your shame. In the presence and in the name of that 
ever-living God, I do therefore conjure you to reflect, that 
you have your characters, your consciences, — that you 
have also the character, perhaps the ultimate destiny of 
your country in your hands. In that awful name, I do 
conjure you to have mercy on your country and your- 
selves, and so judge now, as you shall hereafter be judged; 
and I do now submit the fate of my client, and of that 
country which we have yet in common, to your disposal. 



MODERN ELOQUENCE. 273 

Description of an Informer. — Extract from Currans 
Speech in Defence of Mr. Finnerty. — Dec. 22, 1797. 

The learned gentleman is farther pleased to say, that 
the traverser has charged the government with the en- 
couragement of informers. This, Gentlemen, is another 
small fact, that you are to deny at the hazard of your 
souls and on the solemnity of your oaths. You are, upon 
your oaths, to say to the sister kingdom, that the govern- 
ment of Ireland uses no such abominable instruments of 
destruction as informers. Let me ask you honestly, what 
do you feel, when in my hearing, when in the face of this 
audience, you are called upon to give a verdict that every 
man of us, and every man of you know by the testimony 
of his own eyes, to be utterly and absolutely false? I 
speak not now of the public proclamation of informers, with 
a promise of secrecy and of extravagant reward; I speak 
not of the fate of those horrid wretches who have been so 
often transferred from the table to the dock, and from the 
dock to the pillory; — I speak of what your own eyes have 
seen day after day during the course of this commission, 
from the box where you are now sitting; the number of 
horrid miscreants, who avowed, upon their oaths, that they 
had come from the very seat of government — from the 
castle, where they had been worked upon by the fears of 
death, and the hopes of compensation, to give evidence 
against their fellows, that the mild and wholesome coun- 
cils of this government, are holden over these catacombs 
of living death, where the wretch that is buried a man, 
lies till his heart has time to fester and dissolve, and is 
then dug up a witness. 

Is this fancy, or is it fact? Have you not seen him, 
after his resurrection from that tomb — after having been 
dug out of the region of death and corruption, make his 
appearance upon the table, the living image of life and of 
death, and the supreme arbiter of both? Have you not 
marked when he entered, how the stormy wave of the 
multitude retired at his approach? Have you not marked 
how the human heart bowed to the supremacy of his 
power, in the undissembled homage of deferential horror? 
How his glance, like the lightning of heaven, seemed to 
rive the body of the accused, and mark it for the grave, 



274 MODERN ELOQUENCE. 

while his voice warned the devoted wretch of wo and 
death; a death which no innocence can escape, no art 
elude, no force resist, no antidote prevent : — there was an 
antidote — a juror s oath — but even that adamantine chain, 
that bound the integrity of man to the throne of eternal 
justice, is solved and melted in the breath that issues from 
the informers mouth; conscience swings from her moor- 
ings, and the appalled and affrighted juror consults his 
own safety in the surrender of the victim! 



Liberty of the Press. — Curran in Defence of Hamilton 
Rowan Jan. 29, 1794. 

Gentlemen, — Permit me to say, that if my client had 
occasion to defend his cause by any mad or drunken ap- 
peals to extravagance or licentiousnesss, I trust in God I 
stand in that situation, that, humble as I am, he would 
not have resorted to me to be his advocate. I was not 
recommended to his choice by any connection of principle 
or party, or even private friendship; and saying this, I 
cannot but add, that I consider not to be acquainted with 
such a man as Mr. Rowan, a want of personal good 
fortune. But upon this great subject of reform and 
emancipation, there is a latitude and boldness of remark, 
justifiable in the people, and necessary to the defence of 
Mr. Rowan, for which the habits of professional studies, 
and technical adherence to established forms, have ren- 
dered me unfit. It is, however, my duty, standing here 
as his advocate, to make some few observations to you, 
which I conceive to be material. 

Gentlemen, the interest of the sovereign must be for 
ever the interest of his people ; because his interest lives 
beyond his life ; it must live in his fame ; it must live in 
the tenderness of his solicitude for an unborn posterity; 
it must live in that heart-attaching bond by which millions 
of men have united the destinies of themselves and their 
children with his, and call him by the endearing appella- 
tion Of KING AND FATHER OF HIS PEOPLE. 

The people are always strong; the public chains can 
only be rivetted by the public hands. Look to those 
devoted regions of southern despotism; behold the expir- 



MODERN ELOQUENCE. 2/5 

ing victim on his knees, presenting the javelin, reeking 
with his blood, to the ferocious monster, who returns it 
into his heart. Call not that monster the tyrant : he is no 
more than the executioner of that inhuman tyranny, which 
the people practise upon themselves, and of which he is 
only reserved to be a later victim, than the wretch he has 
sent before him. Look to a nearer country, where the 
sanguinary characters are more legible; whence you 
almost hear the groans of death and torture. Do you 
ascribe the rapine and murder in France, to the few 
names that we are execrating here? or do you not see 
that it is the phrenzy of an infuriated multitude, abusing 
its own strength, and practising those hideous abomina- 
tions on itself. Against the violence of this strength, let 
your virtue and influence be our safeguard. — You are 
living in a country, where the constitution is rightly stated 
to be only ten years old; where the people have not the 
ordinary rudiments of education. It is a melancholy story, 
that the lower orders of people here, have less means of 
being enlightened than the same class in any other country. 
If there be no means left, by which public measures can 
be canvassed, what then remains? The liberty of the 
press wily; that sacred palladium, which no influence, no 
power, no minister, no government, — which nothing but 
the depravity, or folly, or corruption of a jury, can ever 
destroy — And what calamities are the people saved from 
by having public communication left open to them ? I 
will tell you, Gentlemen, what they are saved from, and 
what the government is saved from; I will tell you also 
to what both are exposed, by shutting up that communi- 
cation. In one case, sedition speaks aloud and walks 
abroad ; the demagogue goes forth ; the public eye is upon 
him; he frets his busy hour upon the stage; but soon, 
either weariness, or bribe, or punishment, or disappoint- 
ment, bears him down, or drives him off, and he appears 
no more. In the other case, how does the work of sedi- 
tion go forward? Night after night the muffled rebel 
steals forth in the dark, and casts another and another 
brand upon the pile, to which, when the hour of fatal 
maturity shall arrive, he will apply the flame. If you 
doubt of tjie horrid consequences of suppressing the effu- 
sion even of individual discontent, look to those enslaved 



276 MODERN ELOQUENCE. 

countries, where the protection of despotism is supposed 
to be secured by such restraints. Even the person of the 
despot there is never in safety. Neither the fear of the 
despot, nor the machinations of the slave have any slum- 
ber, the one anticipating the moment of peril, the other 
watching the opportunity of aggression. The fatal crisis 
is equally a surprise upon both; the decisive instant is 
precipitated without warning, by folly on the one side, or 
by frenzy on the other, and there is no notice of the 
treason till the traitor acts. In those unfortunate coun- 
tries (one cannot read it without horror), there are officers 
whose province it is, to have the water which is to be drunk 
by their rulers, sealed up in bottles, lest some wretched 
miscreant should throw poison into the draught. 

In that awful moment of a nation's travail ; of the last 
gasp of tyranny, and the first breath of freedom, how 
pregnant is the example! The press extinguished, the 
people enslaved, and the prince undone. As the advocate 
of society, therefore, of peace, of domestic liberty, and tln\ 
lasting union of the two countries, I conjure you to guard' 
the liberty of the press, that great sentinel of the state, 
that grand detector of public imposture: guard it, because, 
when it sinks, there sinks with it, in one common grave, 
the liberty of the subject, and the security of the crown. 



On Catholic Emancipation. 
This paper, gentlemen, insists upon the necessity of 
emancipating the Catholics of Ireland, and that is charged 
as part of the libel. If they had waited another year — 
if they had kept this prosecution impending for another 
year — how much would remain for a jury to decide upon, 
I should be at a loss to discover. It seems as if the pro- 
gress of public information was eating away the ground of 
the prosecution. Since the commencement of the prose- 
cution, this part of the libel has unluckily received the 
sanction of the legislature. In that interval, our Catholic 
brethren have obtained that admission, which it seems it 
was a libel to propose. In what way to account for this, 
I am really at a loss. Have any alarms been occasioned 
by the emancipation of our Catholic brethren? Has the 



MODERN ELOQUENCE. 277 

bigotted malignity of any individuals been crushed? or 
has the stability of the government, or that of the country 
been weakened? or is one million of subjects stronger than 
four millions? Do you think that the benefit they have 
received, should be poisoned by the sting of vengeance? 
If you think so, you must say to them, " you have de- 
manded emancipation, and you have got it; but we abhor 
your persons, we are outraged at your success, and we 
will stigmatise, by a criminal prosecution, the adviser of 
that relief which you have obtained from the voice of your 
country." I ask you, do you think, as honest men, 
anxious for the public tranquillity, conscious that there are 
wounds not yet completely cicatrised, that you ought to 
speak this language at this time, to men who are too much 
disposed to think, that in this very emancipation, they 
haye been saved from their own parliament, by the hu- 
manity of their sovereign? Or do you wish to prepare 
tl^pa for the revocation of these improvident concessions? 
Vip you think it wise or humane, at this moment, to insult 
them, by sticking up in a pillory the man who dared to 
stand forth as their advocate? I put it to your oaths; do 
you think, that a blessing of that kind — that a victoiy 
obtained by justice over bigotry and oppression — should 
have a stigma cast upon it, by an ignominious sentence 
upon men bold and honest enough to propose that mea- 
sure? — to propose the redeeming of religion from the 
abuses of the church, the reclaiming of three millions of 
men from bondage, and giving liberty to all who had a 
right to demand it; giving, I say, in the so much cen- 
sured words of this paper, giving " Universal Emancipa- 
tion!" I speak in the spirit of the British law, which 
makes liberty commensurate with, and inseparable from, 
British soil; which proclaims even to the stranger and 
sojourner, the moment he sets his foot upon British earth, 
that the ground on which he treads is holy, and conse- 
crated by the genius of Universal Emancipation. No 
matter in what language his doom may have been pro- 
nounced; — no matter what complexion incompatible with 
freedom, an Indian or an African sun may have burned 
upon Mm ; — no matter in what disastrous battle his liberty 
may have been cloven down; — no matter with what so- 
lemnities he may have been devoted upon the altar of 



2/8 MODERN ELOQUENCE. 

slavery; the first moment he touches the sacred soil of 
Britain, the altar and the god sink together in the dust; 
his soul walks abroad in her own majesty; his body swells 
beyond the measure of his chains, that burst from around 
him, and he stands redeemed, regenerated, and disen- 
thralled, by the irresistible genius of Universal Emanci- 
pation. Curran, 



Tribute to Scotland, fyc — Currans Speech in Defence 
of Hamilton Rowan Jan. 29, 1794. 

Gentlemen, — I am glad that this question has not 
been brought forward earlier; I rejoice for the sake of the 
court, of the jury, and of the public repose, that this ques- 
tion has not been brought forward till now. In Great 
Britain, analagous circumstances have taken place. At 
the commencement of that unfortunate war, which has 
deluged all Europe with blood, the spirit of the English 
people was tremblingly alive to the terror of French prin- 
ciples ; at that moment of general paroxysm, to accuse was 
to convict. The danger loomed larger to the public eye, 
from the misty region through which it was surveyed. 
We measure inaccessible heights by the shadows which 
they project, where the lowness and the distance of the 
light form the length of the shade. 

There is a sort of aspiring and adventurous credulity, 
which disdains assenting to obvious truths, and delights 
in catching at the improbability of circumstances, as its 
best ground of faith. To what other cause, Gentlemen, 
can you ascribe, that in the wise, the reflecting, and the 
philosophic nation of Great Britain, a printer has been 
gravely found guilty of a libel, for publishing those resolu- 
tions to which the present minister of that kingdom had 
actually subscribed his name? To what other cause can 
you ascribe, what in my mind is still more astonishing, in 
such a country as Scotland — a nation cast in the happy 
medium between the spiritless acquiescence of submissive 
poverty, and the sturdy credulity of pampered wealth; 
cool and ardent; adventurous and persevering; winging 
her eagle flight against the blaze of every science, with 
an eye that never winks, and a wing that never tires; 
crowned as she is with the spoils of every art, and decked 



MODERN ELOQUENCE. 279 

with the wreath of every muse, from the deep and scruti- 
nizing researches of her Hume, to the sweet and simple, 
but not less pathetic and sublime morality of her Burns — 
how, from the bosom of a country like that, genius, and 
character, and talents, should be banished to a distant 
barbarous soil*; condemned to pine under the horrid 
communion of vulgar vice and baseborn profligacy, for 
twice the period that ordinary calculation gives to the 
continuance of human life? 

But I will not press an idea that is painful to me, and 
I am sure must be painful to you: I will only suggest one 
or two circumstances that you ought to consider, in order 
to found your verdict. You should consider the charac- 
ter of the person accused; and in this your task is easy. 
I will venture to say, there is not a man in this nation 
more known than the gentleman who is the subject of this 
prosecution, not only by the part he has taken in public 
concerns, and which he has taken in common with many, 
but still more so, by that extraordinary sympathy for hu- 
man affliction, which, I am sorry to think, he shares with 
so small a number. There is not a day that you hear the 
cries of your starving manufacturers in your streets, that 
you do not also see the advocate of their sufferings — that 
you do not see his honest and manly figure, with uncovered 
head, soliciting for their relief ; searching the frozen heart 
of charity for every string that can be touched by com- 
passion, and urging the force of every argument and every 
motive, save that which his modesty suppresses — the 
authority of his own generous example. Or if you see 
him not there, you may trace his steps to the private abode 
of disease, and famine, and despair; the messenger of 
heaven, bearing with him food, and medicine, and conso- 
lation. Are these the materials of which you suppose 
anarchy and public rapine to be formed? Is this the man, 
on whom to fasten the abominable charge of goading on 
a frantic populace to mutiny and bloodshed? Is this the 
man likely to apostatise from every principle that can bind 
him to the state; his birth, his property, his education, 
his character, and his children? Let me tell you, Gentle- 



* Mr. Curran alludes to the sentence of transportation passed in Scot- 
land on Messrs. Muir, Palmer, &c. 



280 MODERN ELOQUENCE. 

men of the Jury, if you agree with his prosecutors, in 
thinking that there ought to be a sacrifice of such a man, 
on such an occasion, and upon the credit of such evidence 
you are to convict him, — never did you, never can you 
give a sentence consigning any man to public punishment 
with less danger to his person or to his fame: for where 
could the hireling be found to fling contumely or ingrati- 
tude at his head, whose private distresses he had not 
endeavored to alleviate, or whose public condition he had 
not labored to improve? 

Should your sentence, therefore, send him forth to that 
stage, which guilt alone can render infamous, let me tell 
you, he will not be like a little statue upon a mighty 
pedestal, diminishing by elevation; but he will stand a 
striking and imposing object upon a monument, which, 
if it does not (and it cannot) record the atrocity of his 
crime, must record the atrocity of his conviction* Upon 
this subject, therefore, credit me when I say, that I am 
still more anxious for you, than I can possibly be for him, 
I cannot but feel the peculiarity of your situation. Not 
the jury of his own choice, which the law of England 
allows, but which ours refuses; collected in that box by 
a person, certainly no friend to Mr, Rowan, certainly not 
very deeply interested in giving him a very impartial jury. 
Feeling this, as I am persuaded you do, you cannot be 
surprised, however much you may be distressed, at the 
mournful presage, with which an anxious public is le.d to 
fear the worst from your possible determination. But I 
will not, for the justice and honor of our common country, 
suffer my mind to be borne away by such melancholy 
anticipation. I will not relinquish the confidence, that 
this day will be the period of his sufferings ; and, however 
mercilessly he has been hitherto pursued, that your verdict 
will send him home to the arms of his family, and the 
wishes of his country. But if, which heaven forbid, it 
hath still been unfortunately determined, that because he 
has not bent to power and authority — because he would 
not bow down before the golden calf and worship it, he is 
to be bound, and cast into the furnace; I do trust in God, 
that there is a redeeming spirit in the constitution, which 
will be seen to walk with the sufferer through the flames, 
and to preserve him unhurt by the conflagration. 



MODERN ELOQUENCE. 281 

Extract from Mr, {note Lord) Er shines Speech, in favor 
of Hardy > in 1794. 

Gentlemen, — If precedents in bad times are to be 
followed, why should the Lords and Commons have in- 
vestigated these charges, and the crown have put them 
into this course of judicial trial? since, without such a 
trial, and even after an acquittal upon one, they might 
have attainted all the prisoners by act of parliament; they 
did so in the case of Lord Strafford. There are prece- 
dents, therefore, for all such things; but such precedents 
as could not for a moment survive the times of madness 
and distraction which gave them birth; but which, as 
soon as the spurs of the occasion were blunted, were re- 
pealed and execrated even by parliaments, which, little as 
I think of the present, ought not to be compared with it : 
— parliaments, sitting in the darkness of former times — 
in the night of freedom — before the principles of govern- 
ment were developed, and before the constitution became 
fixed. The last of these precedents, and all the proceed- 
ings upon it; were ordered to be taken off the file and 
burned, to the intent that the same might no longer be 
visible in after ages; an order dictated, no doubt, by a 
pious tenderness for national honor, and meant as a chari- 
table covering for the crimes of our fathers. — But it was 
a sin against posterity; it was a treason against society; — 
for, instead of commanding them to be burned, they should 
rather have directed them to be blazoned in large letters, 
upon the walls of our courts of justice, that, like the 
characters decyphered by the prophet of God, to the east- 
ern tyrant, they might enlarge and blacken in your sights, 
to terrify you from acts of injustice. 

In times, when the whole habitable earth is in a state 
of change and fluctuation, when deserts are starting up 
into civilized empires around you, and when men, no 
longer slaves to the prejudices of particular countries, much 
less to the abuses of particular governments, enlist them- 
selves, like the citizens of an enlightened world, into 
whatever communities their civil liberties may be best 
protected; it never can be for the advantage of this coun- 
try, to prove, that the strict, unextended letter of her 
laws, is no security to her inhabitants. On the contrary, 



282 MODERN ELOQUENCE. 

when so dangerous a hire is every where holding out to 
emigration, it will be found to be the wisest policy of 
Great Britain to set up her happy constitution — -the strict 
letter of her guardian laws, and the proud condition of 
equal freedom, which her highest and her lowest subjects 
ought alike to enjoy; — it will be her wisest policy to set 
up these first of human blessings, against those charms of 
change and novelty, which the varying condition of the 
world is hourly displaying, and which may deeply affect 
the population and prosperity of our country. In times, 
when the subordination to authority is said to be every- 
where but too little felt, it will be found to be the wisest 
policy of Great Britain, to instil into the governed, an 
almost superstitious reverence for the strict security of the 
laws; which, from their equality of principle, beget no 
jealousies or discontent; — which, from their equal admin- 
istration, can seldom work injustice ; and which, from the 
reverence growing out of their mildness and antiquity, 
acquire a stability in the habits and affections of men, far 
beyond the force of civil obligations: whereas, severe 
penalties, and arbitrary constructions of laws intended for 
security, lay the foundations of alienation from every 
human government, and have been the cause of all the 
calamities that have come, and are coming upon the earth. 
Gentlemen, what we read of in books, makes but a 
faint impression upon us, compared to what we see pass- 
ing under our eyes in the living world. I remember the 
people of another country, in like manner, contending for 
a renovation of their constitution, sometimes illegally and 
turbulently, but still devoted to an honest end; — I myself 
saw the people of Brabant so contending for the ancient 
constitution of the good Duke of Burgundy. How was 
this people dealt by? All, who were only contending for 
their own rights and privileges, were supposed to be, of 
course, disaffected to the Emperor: — they were handed 
over to courts constituted for the emergency, as this is; 
and the Emperor marched his army through the country, 
till all was peace ; — but such peace as there is in Vesuvius 
or iEtna, the very moment before they vomit forth their 
lava, and roll their conflagrations over the devoted habita- 
tions of mankind: when the French approached, the fatal 
effects were suddenly seen, of a government of constraint 



MODERN ELOQUENCE. 283 

and terror; — the well-affected were dispirited, and the 
disaffected inflamed into fury. At that moment, the 
Archdutchess fled from Brussels, and the Duke of Saxe- 
Teschen was sent express, to offer the joyeuse entree so long 
petitioned for in vain : but the season of concession was 
past; the storm blew from every quarter, and the throne 
of Brabant departed for ever from the house of Burgundy, 
Gentlemen, I venture to affirm that, with other coun- 
cils, this fatal prelude to the last revolution in that country, 
might have been averted. If the Emperor had been ad- 
vised to make the concessions of justice and affection to 
his people, they would have risen in a mass to maintain 
their prince's authority, interwoven with their own liber- 
ties; and the French, the giants of modern times, would, 
like the giants of antiquity, have been trampled in the 
mire of their own ambition. To conclude, my fervent 
wish is, that we may not conjure up a spirit to destroy 
ourselves, nor set the example here of what, in another 
country, we deplore. Let us cherish the old and venerable 
laws of our forefathers — let our judicial administration be 
strict and pure ; and let the jury of the land preserve the 
life of a fellow-subject, who only asks it from them upon 
the same terms under which they hold their own lives, 
and all that is dear to them and their posterity for ever. — 
Let me repeat the wish, with which I began my address 
to you, and which proceeds from the very bottom of my 
heart ; — may it please God, who is the author of all mer- 
cies to mankind, whose providence, I am persuaded, 
guides and superintends the transactions of the world, 
and whose guardian spirit has for ever hovered over this 
prosperous island, to direct and fortify your judgments. 
I am aware I have not acquitted myself to the unfortunate 
man who has put his trust in me, in the manner I could 
have wished; yet I am unable to proceed any farther; 
exhausted in spirit and in strength, but confident in the 
expectation of justice. 



Extract from Lord Erskines Speech^ on the Trial af 
John Stockdale, for a Libel on the House of Commons, 

Dec. 9, 1789 Part First. 

Gentlemen, — Ere I venture to lay the book before 

you, it must be yet further remembered (for the fact is 



284 MODERN ELOQUENCE. 

equally notorious), that under these inauspicious circum- 
stances, the trial of Mr. Hastings at the bar of the Lords 
had actually commenced long before its publication. 

There the most august and striking spectacle was daily 
exhibited, which the world ever witnessed; a vast stage 
of justice was erected, awful from its high authority, 
splendid from its illustrious dignity, venerable for the 
learning and wisdom of its judges, captivating and affect- 
ing from the mighty concourse of all ranks and conditions 
which daily flocked into it, as into a theatre of pleasure; 
there when the whole public mind, was at once awed and 
softened to the impression of every human affection, there 
appeared, day after day, one after another, men of the 
most powerful and exalted talents, eclipsing by their ac- 
cusing eloquence the most boasted harangues of antiquity ; 
— rousing the pride of national resentment by the boldest 
invectives against broken faith and violated treaties, and 
shaking the bosom with alternate pity and horror, by the 
most glowing pictures of insulted nature and humanity; — 
ever animated and energetic, from the love of fame, which 
is the inherent passion of genius ; — firm, and indefatigable, 
from a strong prepossession of the justice of their cause. — 
Gentlemen, when the author sat down to write the book 
now before you, all this terrible, unceasing, exhaustless 
artillery of warm zeal, matchless vigor of understanding, 
consuming and devouring eloquence, united with the 
highest dignity, was daily, and without prospect of con- 
clusion, pouring forth upon one private unprotected man, 
who was bound to hear it, in the face of the whole people 
of England, with reverential submission and silence. — I 
do not complain of this as I did of the publication of the 
charges, because it was what the law allowed and sanc- 
tioned in the course of a public trial: but when it is re- 
membered that we are not angels, but weak fallible men, 
and that even the noble judges of that high tribunal are 
clothed beneath their ermines with the common infirmities 
of man s nature, it will bring us all to a proper temper for 
considering the book itself, which will in a few moments 
be laid before you. But first, let me once more remind 
you, that it was under all these circumstances, and amidst 
the blaze of passion and prejudice, which the scene I have 
been endeavoring faintly to describe to you, might be 



MODERN ELOQUENCE. 285 

supposed likely to produce, that the author sat down to 
compose the book which is prosecuted to-day as a libel. 

Gentlemen, the question you have therefore to try upon 
all this matter is extremely simple. — It is neither more nor 
less than this — At a time when the charges against Mr. 
Hastings were, by the implied consent of the Commons, 
in every hand, and on every table; — when by their man- 
agers, the lightning of eloquence was incessantly consuming 
him, and flashing in the eyes of the public; — when every 
man was, with perfect impunity, saying, and writing, and 
publishing, just what he pleased of the supposed plunderer 
and devastator of nations; would it have been criminal in 
Mr. Hastings himself to have reminded the public that 
he was a native of this free land, entitled to the common 
protection of her justice, and that he had a defence in his 
turn to offer to them, the outlines of which he implored 
them in the meantime to receive, as an antidote to the 
unlimited and unpunished poison in circulation against 
Mm? — This is, without color or exaggeration, the true 
question you are to decide. Because I assert, without 
the hazard of contradiction, that if Mr. Hastings himself 
could have stood justified or excused in your eyes for pub- 
lishing this volume in his own defence, the author, if he 
wrote it bona fide to defend him, must stand equally ex- 
cused and justified; and if the author be justified, the 
publisher cannot be criminal, unless you had evidence that 
it was published by him, with a different spirit and inten- 
tion from these in which it was written. The question 
therefore is correctly what I just now stated it to be: 
Could Mr. Hastings have been condemned to infamy for 
writing this book? 

Gentlemen, I tremble with indignation, to be driven to 
put such a question in England. Shall it be endured, that 
a subject of this country (instead of being arraigned and 
tried for some single act in her ordinary courts, where the 
accusation, as soon at least as it is made public, is followed 
within a few hours by the decision) may be impeached by 
the Commons for the transactions of twenty years, — that 
the accusation shall spread as wide as the region of let- 
ters, — that the accused shall stand, day after day, and 
year after year, as a spectacle before the public, which 
shall be kept in a perpetual state of inflammation against 



286 MODERN ELOQUENCE. 

him; yet that he shall not, without the severest penalties, 
be permitted to submit any thing to the judgment of man- 
kind in his defence ? If this be law (which it is for you 
to-day to decide), such a man has no trial; that great 
hall, built by our fathers for English justice, is no longer 
a court, but an altar; — and an Englishman, instead of be- 
ing judged in it by God and his country, is a victim and 
a sacrifice. 



From the same Speech. — Part Second. 
Gentlemen of the Jury,— If this be a wilfully false 
account of the instructions given to Mr. Hastings for his 
government, and of his conduct under them, the author 
and publisher of this defence deserve the severest punish- 
ment, for a mercenary imposition on the public. — But if it 
be true that he was directed to make the safety and pro- 
sperity of Bengal the first object of his attention, and that, 
under his administration, it has been safe and prosperous; 
— if it be true that the security and preservation of our 
possessions and revenues in Asia were marked out to him 
as the great leading principle of his government, and that 
those possessions and revenues, amidst unexampled dan- 
gers, have been secured and preserved; then a question 
may be unaccountably mixed with your consideration, 
much beyond the consequence of the present prosecution, 
involving, perhaps, the merit of the Impeachment itself 
Avhich gave it birth; — a question which the Commons, as 
prosecutors of Mr. Hastings, should in common prudence 
have avoided; unless, regretting the unwieldy length of 
their proceedings against him, they wished to afford him 
the opportunity of this strange anomalous defence. — For 
altho I am neither his counsel, nor desire to have any 
thing to do with his guilt or innocence; yet, in the colla- 
teral defence of my client, I am driven to state matter 
which may be considered by many as hostile to the Im- 
peachment. For if our dependencies have been secured, 
and their interests promoted, I am driven, in the defence 
of my client, to remark, that it is mad and preposterous to 
bring to the standard of justice and humanity, the exercise 
of a dominion founded upon violence and terror. It may, 
and must be true, that Mr. Hastings has repeatedly of- 



MODERN ELOQUENCE. 28/ 

fended against the rights and privileges of Asiatic govern- 
ment, if he was the faithful deputy of a power which could 
not maintain itself for an hour without trampling upon 
both: — he may and must have offended against the laws 
of God and nature, if he was the faithful viceroy of an 
empire wrested in blood from the people to whom God 
and nature had given it: — he may and must have pre- 
served that unjust dominion over timorous and abject na- 
tions by a terrifying, overbearing, insulting superiority, if 
he was the faithful administrator of your government, 
which, having no root in consent or affection — no founda- 
tion in similarity of interests, — nor support from any one 
principle which cements men together in society, could 
only be upheld by alternate stratagem and force. The 
unhappy people of India, feeble and effeminate as they 
are from the softness of their climate, and subdued and 
broken as they have been by the knavery and strength of 
civilization, still occasionally start up in all the vigor and 
intelligence of insulted nature : — to be governed at all, they 
must be governed with a rod of iron ; and our empire in 
the east, would, long since, have been lost to Great Bri- 
tain, if civil skill and military prowess had not united 
their efforts to support an authority — which heaven never 
gave, — by means which it never can sanction. 

Gentlemen, L think I can observe that you are touched 
with this way of considering the subject; and I can ac- 
count for it. — I have not been considering it through the 
cold medium of books, but have been speaking of man 
and his nature, and of human dominion, from what I have 
seen of them myself amongst reluctant nations submitting 
to our authority. — I know what they feel, and how such 
feelings can alone be repressed — I have heard them in 
my youth from a naked savage, in the indignant character 
of a prince surrounded by his subjects, addressings the 
governor of a British colony, holding a bundle of sticks in 
his hand, as the notes of his unlettered eloquence: " Who 
is it?" said the jealous ruler over the desert, encroached 
upon by the restless foot of English adventure — " who is 
it that causes this river to rise in the high mountains, and 
to empty itself in the ocean? Who is it that causes to 
blow the loud winds of winter, and that calms them again 
in the summer? Who is it that rears up the shade of those 



288 MODERN ELOQUENCE. 

lofty forests, and blasts them with the quick lightning at 
his pleasure? — The same Being who gave to you a coun- 
try on the other side of the waters, and gave ours to us; 
and by this title we will defend it;" — said the warrior, 
throwing down his tomahawk upon the ground, and rais- 
ing the war-sound of his nation. — These are the feelings 
of subjugated man all round the globe; and depend upon 
it, nothing but fear will control where it is vain to look 
for affection. 

These reflections are the only antidotes to those ana- 
themas of superhuman eloquence which have lately shaken 
these walls that surround us ;— but which it unaccountably 
falls to my province, whether I will or no, a little to stem 
the torrent of, — by reminding you that you have a mighty 
sway in Asia, which cannot be maintained by the finer 
sympathies of life, or the practice of its charities and af- 
fections: What will they do for you when surrounded 
by two hundred thousand men, with artillery, cavalry, and 
elephants, calling upon you for their dominions which you 
have robbed them of? Justice may, no doubt, in such a 
case, forbid the levying of a fine to pay a revolting sol- 
diery: — & treaty may stand in the way of increasing a tri- 
bute to keep up the very existence of the government; 
and delicacy for women may forbid all entrance into a 
Zenana for money, whatever may be the necessity for 
taking it. — All these things must ever be occurring.- — But 
under the pressure of such constant difficulties, so danger- 
ous to national honor, it might be better perhaps to think 
of effectually securing it altogether, by recalling our troops 
and our merchants, and abandoning our oriental empire. 
Until this be done, neither religion nor philosophy can be 
pressed very far into the aid of reformation and punish- 
ment. If England, from a lust of ambition and dominion, 
will insist on maintaining a despotic rule over distant and 
hostile nations, beyond all comparison more numerous and 
extended than herself, and gives commission to her vice- 
roys to govern them with no other instructions than to 
preserve them, and to secure permanently their revenues; 
with what color of consistency or reason can she place 
herself in the moral chain, and affect to be shocked at the 
execution of her own orders ; adverting to the exact mea- 
sure of wickedness and injustice necessary to their execu- 



MODERN ELOQUENCE. 289 

tion, and complaining only of the excess as the immorality, 
considering her authority as a dispensation for breaking 
the commands of God, and the breach of them as only 
punishable when contrary to the ordinances of man. 

Such a proceeding, Gentlemen, begets serious reflec- 
tions. It would be better perhaps for the masters and the 
servants of all such governments, to join in supplication, 
that the great author of violated humanity may not con- 
found them together in one common judgment. 



<r*+*++f*r+i+m>+rr++**r+++n 



From the same Speech — Part Third. 

Gentlemen, — I find, as I said before, I have not suf- 
ficient strength to go on with the remaining parts of the 
book. I hope, however, that notwithstanding my omis- 
sions, you are now completely satisfied, that whatever 
errors or misconceptions may have misled the writer of 
these pages, the justification of a person whom he believed 
to be innocent, and whose accusers had themselves ap- 
pealed to the public, was the single object of his contem- 
plation. If I have succeeded in that object, every purpose 
which I had in addressing you has been answered. 

It only now remains to remind you, that another con- 
sideration has been strongly pressed upon you, and, no 
doubt, will be insisted on in reply. — You will be told that 
the matters which I have been justifying as legal, and even 
meritorious, have therefore not been made the subject of 
complaint; and that whatever intrinsic merit parts of the 
book may be supposed, or even admitted to possess, such 
merit can afford no justification to the selected passages, 
some of which even with the context, carry the meaning 
charged by the information, and which are indecent ani- 
madversions on authority. To this I would answer (still 
protesting as I do against the application of any one of the 
innuendos), that if you are firmly persuaded of the single- 
ness and purity of the author's intentions, you are not 
bound to subject him to infamy, because, in the zealous 
career of a just and animated composition, he happens to 
have tripped with his pen into an intemperate expression 
in one or two instances of a long work. If this severe 
duty were binding on your consciences, the liberty of the 
c c 



290 MODERN ELOQUENCE. 

press would be an empty sound, and no man could ven- 
ture to write on any subject, however pure his purpose, 
without an attorney at one elbow, and a counsel at the other. 
From minds thus subdued by the terrors of punish- 
ment, there could issue no works of genius to expand the 
empire of human reason, nor any masterly compositions 
on the general nature of government, by the help of which, 
the great commonwealths of mankind have founded their 
establishments ; much less any of those useful applications 
of them to critical conjunctures, by which, from time to 
time, our own constitution, by the exertion of patriot ci- 
tizens, has been brought back to its standard. — Under 
such terrors, all the great lights of science and civilization 
must be extinguished; for men cannot communicate their 
free thoughts to one another with a lash held over their 
heads. It is the nature of every thing that is great and 
useful, both in the animate and inanimate world, to be 
wild and irregular, — and we must be contented to take 
them with the alloys which belong to them, or live with- 
out them. Genius breaks from the fetters of criticism, 
but its wanderings are sanctioned by its majesty and wis- 
dom, when it advances in its path;- — subject it to the critic, 
and you tame it into dulness. Mighty rivers break down 
their banks in the winter, sweeping away to death the 
flocks which are fattened on the soil that they fertilize in 
the summer; the few may be saved by embankments from 
drowning, but the flock must perish for hunger. — Tem- 
pests occasionally shake our dwellings and dissipate our 
commerce; but they scourge before them the lazy ele- 
ments, whfch, without them; would stagnate into pesti- 
lence. — In like manner, Liberty herself, the last and best 
gift of God to his creatures, must be taken just as she is; 

you might pare her down into bashful regularity, and 

shape her into a perfect model of severe scrupulous law, 
but she would then be liberty no longer; and you must 
be content to die under the lash of this inexorable justice 
which you had exchanged for the banners of freedom. 

Extract from Lord Er shines Speech, for Captain 

Baillie, Nov. 24, 1778. 
Such, my Lords, is the case. The Defendant, — not a 
disappointed malicious informer, prying into official abuses, 



MODERN ELOQUENCE. 291 

because without office himself, but himself a man in of- 
fice; — not troublesomely inquisitive into other men's de- 
partments, but conscientiously correcting his own; — doing 
it pursuant to the rules of law, and, what heightens the 
character, doing it at the risk of his office, from which the 
effrontery of power has already suspended him without 
proof of his guilt; — a conduct not only unjust and illi- 
beral, but highly disrespectful to this court, whose Judges 
sit in the double capacity of ministers of the law, and 
governors of this sacred and abused institution. Indeed, 

Lord has, in my opinion, acted such a part * * 

****** (Here, Lord Mansfield observing 
the Counsel heated with his subject, and growing personal 
on the First Lord of the Admiralty, told him that Lord 

was not before the Court.) I know that he is not 

formally before the Court, but, for that very reason, I will 
bring him before the Court: he has placed these men in 
the front of the battle, in hopes to escape under their 
shelter, but I will not join in battle with them: their vices, 
though screwed up to the highest pitch of human depra- 
vity, are not of dignity enough to vindicate the combat 
with me, I will drag him to light, who is the dark mover 
behind this scene of iniquity. I assert that the Earl of 
has but one road to escape out of this business with- 
out pollution and disgrace: and that is, by publicly dis- 
avowing the acts of the prosecutors, and restoring Captain 
Baillie to his command. If he does this, then his offence 
will be no more than the too common one of having suffered 
his own 'personal interest to prevail over his public duty, 
in placing his voters in the hospital. But if, on the con- 
trary, he continues to protect the prosecutors, in spite of 
the evidence of their guilt, which has excited the abhor- 
rence of the numerous audience that crowd this court; If 

HE KEEPS THIS INJURED MAN SUSPENDED, OR DARES 
TO TURN THAT SUSPENSION INTO A REMOVAL, I SHALL 
THEN NOT SCRUPLE TO DECLARE HIM AN ACCOMPLICE 
IN THEIR GUILT, A SHAMELESS OPPRESSOR, A DISGRACE 
TO HIS RANK, AND A TRAITOR TO HIS TRUST. 

But as I should be very sorry that the fortune of my 
brave and honorable friend should depend either upon the 

exercise of Lord 's virtues, or the influence of his 

fears, I do most earnestly entreat the court to mark the 



292 MODERN ELOQUENCE. 

malignant object of this prosecution, and to defeat it: — 
I beseech you, my Lords, to consider, that even by dis- 
charging the rule, and with costs, the defendent is neither 
protected nor restored. I trust, therefore, your Lordships 
will not rest satisfied with fulfilling your judicial duty, 
but as the strongest evidence of foul abuses has, by acci- 
dent, come collaterally before you, that you will protect 
a brave and public spirited officer from the persecution 
this wiiting has brought upon him, and not suffer so dread- 
ful an example to go abroad into the world, as the ruin of 
an upright man, for having faithfully discharged his duty. 

My Lords, this matter is of the last importance. I 
speak not as an advocate alone — I speak to you as a man 
— as a member of a state, whose very existence depends 
upon her naval strength. If a misgovernment were to fall 
upon Chelsea Hospital, to the ruin and discouragement 
of our army, it would be, no doubt, to be lamented, yet I 
should not think it fatal; but if our fleets are to be crip- 
pled by the baneful influence of elections, tve are lost in* 
deed! If the seaman, who, while he exposes his body to 
fatigue and dangers, looking forward to Greenwich as an 
asylum for infirmity and old age, sees the gates of it blocked 
up by corruption, and hears the riot and mirth of luxurious 
landmen drowning the groans and complaints of the wound- 
ed, helpless companion of his glory, — he will tempt the 
seas no more. The Admiralty may press his body, in- 
deed, at the expense of humanity and the constitution, 
but they cannot press his mind — they cannot press the 
heroic ardor of a British sailor; and instead of a fleet to 
carry terror all round the globe, the Admiralty may not 
much longer be able to amuse us with even the peaceable, 
unsubstantial pageant of a review. 

Fine and imprisonment! — The man deserves a pa- 
lace, instead of a prison, who prevents the palace, built 
by the public bounty of his country, from being converted 
into a dungeon, and who sacrifices his own security to the 
interests of humanity and virtue. 

And now, my Lord, I have done; — but not without 
thanking your Lordship for the very indulgent attention 
I have received, tho in so late a stage of this business, 
and, notwithstanding my great incapacity and inexperience, 
I resign my client into your hands, and I resign him with 



MODERN ELOQUENCE. 293 

a well-founded confidence and hope; because that torrent 
of corruption, which has unhappily overwhelmed every 
other part of the constitution, is, by the blessing of Pro- 
vidence, stopped here by the sacred independence of the 
Judges. 



Extract from Lord Erskines Speech on the Age of 
Reason, 1797. 

This publication appears to me to be as cruel and mis- 
chievous in its effects, as it is manifestly illegal in its prin- 
ciples ; because it strikes at the best — sometimes, alas ! the 
only refuge and consolation amidst the distresses and afflic- 
tions of the world. The poor and humble, whom it affects to 
pity, may be stabbed to the heart by it. — They have more 
occasion for firm hopes beyond the grave, than the rich 
and prosperous, who have other comforts to render life 
delightful. I can conceive a distressed, but virtuous man, 
surrounded by his children, looking up to him for bread 
when he has none to give them; — sinking under the last 
day's labor, and unequal to the next, — yet still, supported 
by confidence in the hour when all tears shall be wiped 
from the eyes of affliction, bearing the burden laid upon 
him by a mysterious providence which he adores, and an- 
ticipating with exultation the revealed promises of his 
Creator, when he shall be greater than the greatest, and 
liappier than the happiest of mankind. What a change 
in such a mind might be wrought by such a merciless 
publication! 

Gentlemen, it would be useless and disgusting to enu- 
merate the offensive passages within the scope of the in- 
dictment. How any man can rationally vindicate the 
publication of such a book, in a country where the Chris- 
tian religion is the very foundation of the law of the land, 
I am totally at a loss to conceive, and have no ideas for 
the discussion of. How is a tribunal, whose whole juris- 
diction is founded upon the solemn belief and practice of 
what is here denied as falsehood, and reprobated as im- 
piety, to deal with such an anomalous defence? — Upon 
what principle is it even offered to the court, whose au- 
thority is contemned and mocked at? — If the religion 
proposed to be called in question, is not previously adopted 



294 MODERN ELOQUENCE. 

in belief and solemnly acted upon, what authority has the 
court to pass any judgment at all of acquittal or condem- 
nation? — Why am I now, or upon any other occasion, to 
submit to his Lordship's authority? — Why am I now, or 
at any other time, to address twelve of my equals, as I 
am now addressing you, with reverence and submission? — 
Under what sanction are the witnesses to give their evi- 
dence, without which there can be no trial? — Under what 
obligations can I call upon you, the Jury representing your 
country, to administer justice? — Surely upon no other, 
than that you are sworn to administer it under the oaths 
you have taken. The whole judicial fabric, from the king's 
sovereign authority to the lowest office of magistracy, has 
no other foundation. The whole is built, both in form 
and substance, upon the same oath of every one of its 
ministers to do justice, as God shall help them 
hereafter. What God? and what hereafter? That 
God, undoubtedly, who has commanded kings to rule, and 
judges to decree justice; — who has said to witnesses, not 
only by the voice of nature, but in revealed command- 
ments — Thou shalt not bear false testimony 
against thy neighbor; and who has enforced obe- 
dience to them by the revelation of the unutterable bless- 
ings which shall attend their observance, and the awful 
punishments which shall await upon their transgressions. 

But it seems this is an age of reason, and the time 
and the person are at last arrived, that are to dissipate the 
errors which have overspread the past generations of ig- 
norance. The believers in Christianity are many, but it 
belongs to the few that are wise to correct their credulity. 
Belief is an act of reason, and superior reason may, there- 
fore, dictate to the weak. In contemplating the long list 
of sincere and devout Christians, I cannot help lamenting, 
that Newton had not lived to this day, to have had his 
shallowness filled up with this new flood of light. — -But 
the subject is too awful for irony. I will speak plainly 
and directly. Newton was a Christian! — Newton, whose 
mind burst forth from the fetters fastened by nature upon 
our finite conceptions — Newton, whose science was truth, 
and the foundation of whose knowledge of it was philo- 
sophy — not those visionary and arrogant presumptions, 
which too often usurp its name, but philosophy resting 



MODERN ELOQUENCE. 295 

upon the basis of mathematics, which, like figures, cannot 
lie — Newton, who carried the line and rule to the utmost 
barriers of creation, and explored the principles by which 
all created matter is held together, and exists. But this 
extraordinary man, in the mighty reach of his mind, over- 
looked, perhaps, the errors, which a minuter investigation 
of the created things of this earth might have taught him. 
What shall then be said of the great Mr. Boyle, who looked 
into the organic structure of all matter, even to the inani- 
mate substances which the foot treads upon? Such a 
man may be supposed to have been equally qualified with 
Mr. Paine to look up through nature to nature's God. 
Yet the result of all his contemplations was the most con- 
firmed and devout belief in all which the other holds in 
contempt, as despicable and driveling superstition. — But 
this error might, perhaps, arise from a want of due atten- 
tion to the foundations of human judgment, and the struc- 
ture of that understanding which God has given us for the 
investigation of truth. — Let that question be answered by 
Mr. Locke, who, to the highest pitch of devotion and 
adoration, was a Christian — Mr. Locke, whose office was 
to detect the errors of thinking, by going up to the very 
fountains of thought, and to direct into the proper tract 
of reasoning, the devious mind of man, by showing him 
its whole process, from the first perceptions of sense to the 
last conclusions of ratiocination: — putting a rein upon false 
opinion, by practical rules for the conduct of human judg- 
ment. 

But these men, it may be said, were only deep thinkers, 
and lived in their closets, unaccustomed to the traffic of 
the world, and to the laws which practically regulate man- 
kind. Gentlemen, in the place where you now sit to ad- 
minister the justice of this great country, the never-to-be- 
forgotten Sir Matthew Hale presided; — whose faith in 
Christianity is an exalted commentary upon its truth and 
reason, and whose life was a glorious example of its fruits ; 
— whose justice, drawn from the pure fountain of the 
Christian dispensation, will be, in all ages, a subject of 
the highest reverence and admiration. But it is said by 
the author, that the Christian fable is but the tale of the 
more ancient superstitions of the world, and may be easily 
detected by a proper understanding of the mythologies of 



296 MODERN ELOQUENCE. 

the Heathens. — Did Milton understand those mytholo- 
gies? — Was he less versed than Paine in the superstitions 
of the world? No, — they were the subject of his immor- 
tal song; and tho shut out from all recurrence to them, 
he poured them forth from the stores of a memory rich 
with all that man ever knew, and laid them in their order 
as the illustrations of real and exalted faith, the unques- 
tionable source of that fervid genius, which has cast a kind 
of shade upon all the other works of man- 
He pass'd the bounds of flaming space, 
Where angels tremble while they gaze- 
He saw, — till, blasted with excess of light, 
He clos'd his eyes in endless night. 

But it was the light of the body only that was extinguished: 
The celestial light shone inward, and enabled him to 
" justify the ways of God to man." — The result of his 
thinking was, nevertheless, not quite the same as the au- 
thor's before us. The mysterious incarnation of our blessed 
Saviour (which this work blasphemes in words so wholly 
unfit for the mouth of a Christian, or for the ear of a court 
of justice, that I dare not, and will not give them utter- 
ance), Milton made the grand conclusion of his Paradise 
Lost, the rest from his finished labors, and the ultimate 
hope, expectation, and glory of the world. 

Thus you find all that is great, or wise, or splendid, or 
illustrious, amongst created beings; — all the minds gifted 
beyond ordinary nature, if not inspired by its universal 
Author for the advancement and dignity of the world, 
tho divided by distant ages, and by clashing opinions, yet 
joining, as it were, in one sublime chorus, to celebrate the 
truths of Christianity, and laying upon its holy altars the 
never-fading offerings of their immortal wisdom. 

Against all this concurring testimony, we find suddenly, 
from the author of this book, that the Bible teaches no- 
thing but " lies, obscenity, cruelty, and injustice," — Had 
he ever read our Saviour's sermon on the Mount, in which 
the great principles of our faith and duty are summed up? 
— Let us all but read and practise it; and lies, obscenity, 
cruelty, and injustice, and all human wickedness, will be 
banished from the world! 

The people of England are a religious people, and, with 
the blessing of God, so far as it is in my power, I will 



MODERN ELOQUENCE. 297 

lend my aid to keep them so. — I have no objections to 
the most extended and free discussion upon doctrinal 
points of the Christian religion; and tho the law of Eng- 
land does not permit it, I do not dread the reasonings of 
Deists, against the existence of Christianity itself, because, 
as was said by its divine Author, if it be of God it will 
stand. An intellectual book, however erroneous, addressed 
to the intellectual world upon so profound and complicated 
a subject, can never work the mischief which this indict- 
ment is calculated to repress. Such works will only in- 
cite the minds of men enlightened by study, to a deeper 
investigation of a subject well worthy of their deepest and 
continued contemplation. The powers of the mind are 
given for human improvement in the progress of human 
existence. The changes produced by such reciprocations 
of lights and intelligences are certain in their progressions, 
and make their way imperceptibly, by the final and irre- 
sistible power of truth. If Christianity be founded in 
falsehood, let us become Deists in this manner, and I am 
contented. — But this book has no such object, and no such 
capacity: — it presents no argument to the wise and en- 
lightened. On the contrary, it treats the faith and opinions 
of the wisest with the most shocking contempt, and stirs 
up men, without the advantages of learning, or sober think- 
ing, to a total disbelief of every thing hitherto held sacred; 
and, consequently, to a rejection of all the laws and ordi- 
nances of the state, which stand only upon the assumption 
of their truth. 

Gentlemen, I cannot conclude without expressing the 
deepest regret at all attacks upon the Christian religion, 
by authors who profess to promote the civil liberties of 
the world. For under what other auspices than Chris- 
tianity, have the lost and subverted liberties of mankind in 
former ages been re- asserted? — By what zeal, but the 
warm zeal of devout Christians, have English liberties 
been redeemed and consecrated? Under what other 
sanctions, even in our own days, have liberty and happi- 
ness been spreading to the uttermost corners of the earth? 
— What work of civilization, what commonwealth of great- 
ness, has this bold religion of nature ever established? — 
We see, on the contrary, the nations that have no other 
light than that of nature to direct them, sunk in barbarism, 



298 MODERN ELOQUENCE. 

or slaves to arbitrary governments ; whilst, under the Chris- 
tian dispensation, the great career of the world has been 
slowly, but clearly advancing, — lighter at every step, from 
the encouraging prophecies of the gospel, and leading, I 
trust, in the end, to universal and eternal happiness. Each 
generation of mankind can see but a few revolving links 
of this mighty and mysterious chain ; but by doing our 
several duties in our allotted stations, we are sure that we 
are fulfilling the purposes of our existence. — You, I trust, 
will fulfil yours this day. 



**>i*** w *****i*+**w+f* - *+*iN>+m 



Mr. Pitt's Reply to Horace Walpole. 

Sir, — The atrocious crime of being a young man, which 
the honorable gentleman has with such spirit and decency 
charged upon me, I shall neither attempt to palliate nor 
deny; but content myself with wishing that I may be one 
of those whose follies may cease with their youth, and not 
of those who continue ignorant in spite of age and expe- 
rience. 

Whether youth can be attributed to any man as a re- 
proach, I will not, Sir, assume the province of determin- 
ing; but surely age may justly become contemptible, if 
the opportunities which it brings have passed away with- 
out improvement, and vice appear to prevail when the 
passions have subsided. The wretch, who, after having 
seen the consequences of a thousand errors, continues still 
to blunder, and in whom age has only added obstinacy to 
stupidity, is surely the object either of abhorrence or con- 
tempt, and deserves not that his grey head should secure 
him from insults. Much more, Sir, is he to be abhorred, 
who, as he has advanced in age, has receded from virtue, 
and become more wicked with less temptation, who pro- 
stitutes himself for money which he cannot enjoy, and 
spends the remains of his life in the ruin of his country* 

But youth, Sir, is not my only crime: I have been ac- 
cused of acting a theatrical part. — A theatrical part may 
either imply some peculiarities of gesture, or a dissimula- 
tion of my real sentiments, and the adoption of the opinions 
and language of another man. 

In the first sense, Sir, the charge is too trifling to be 



MODERN ELOQUENCE. 299 

confuted, and deserves to be mentioned only that it may 
be despised. I am at liberty, like every other man, to use 
my own language ; and tho I may perhaps have some am- 
bition to please this gentleman, I shall not lay myself under 
any restraint, nor very solicitously copy his diction or his 
mien, however matured by age or modelled by experience. 

But if any man shall, by charging me Avith theatrical 
behaviour, imply that I utter any sentiments but my own, 
I shall treat him as a calumniator and a villain; nor shall 
any protection shelter him from the treatment which he 
deserves. I shall, on such an occasion, without scruple, 
trample upon all those forms with which wealth and dig- 
nity entrench themselves, nor shall any thing but age re- 
strain my resentment; age, which always brings with it 
one privilege, that of being insolent and supercilious with- 
out punishment. 

But with regard, Sir, to those whom I have offended, 
I am of opinion, that if I had acted a borrowed part, I 
should have avoided their censure; the heat which of- 
fended them, is the ardor of conviction, and that zeal for 
the service of my country which neither hope nor fear 
shall influence me to suppress. I will not sit unconcerned 
while my liberty is invaded, nor look in silence upon pub- 
lic robbery. — I will exert my endeavors, at whatever haz- 
ard, to repel the aggressor and drag the thief to justice, 
whoever may protect him in his villany, and whoever may 
partake of his plunder. 



Speech of Lord Chatham, in the House of Peers, against 
the American War, and against employing the Indians 
in it 

I cannot, my Lords, I will not, join in congratulation 
on misfortune and disgrace. This, my Lords, is a peril- 
ous and tremendous moment. It is not a time for adula- 
tion: the smoothness of flattery cannot save us in this 
rugged and awful crisis. It is now necessary to instruct 
the throne in the language of truth. We must, if pos- 
sible, dispel the delusion and darkness which envelope it; 
and display, in its full danger and genuine colors, the ruin 
which is brought to our doors. Can ministers still pre- 



300 MODERN ELOQUENCE. 

sume to expect support in their infatuation? Can par- 
liament be so dead to its dignity and duty, as to give their 
support to measures thus obtruded and forced upon them? 
Measures, my Lords, which have reduced this late flourish- 
ing empire to scorn and contempt! " But yesterday, and 
Britain might have stood against the world : now, none so 
poor as to do her reverence:" — The people, whom we at 
first despised as rebels, but whom we now acknowledge 
as enemies, are abetted against us, supplied with every 
military store, have their interest consulted, and their am- 
bassadors entertained by our inveterate enemy — and min- 
isters do not, and dare not, interpose with dignity or ef- 
fect. The desperate state of our army abroad is in part 
known. No man more highly esteems and honors the 
British troops than I do ; I know their virtues and their 
valor; I know they can achieve any thing but impossi- 
bilities; and I know that the conquest of British America 
is an impossibility. You cannot, my Lords, you cannot 
conquer America. What is your present situation there? 
We do not know the worst: but we know that in three 
campaigns we have done nothing, and suffered much. 
You may swell every expense, accumulate every assist- 
ance, and extend your traffic to the shambles of every 
German despot: your attempts will be for ever vain and 
impotent — doubly so, indeed, from this mercenary aid on 
which you rely; for it irritates, to an incurable resent- 
ment, the minds of your adversaries, to over-run them 
with the mercenary sons of rapine and plunder, devoting 
them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cru- 
elty. If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, 
while a foreign troop was landed in my countiy, I never 
would lay down my arms; — Never y never, never! — 

But, my Lords, who is the man, that, in addition to 
the disgraces and mischiefs of the war, has dared to au- 
thorise and associate to our arms the tomahawk and scalp- 
ing-knife of the savage? — to call into civilized alliance, 
the wild and inhuman inhabitant of the woods? — to dele- 
gate to the merciless Indian, the defence of disputed 
rights, and to wage the horrors of his barbarous war against 
our brethren? My Lords, these enormities cry aloud for 
redress and punishment. But, my Lords, this barbarous 
measure has been defended, not only on the principles of 



MODERN ELOQUENCE. 301 

policy and necessity, but also on those of morality; " for 
it is perfectly allowable," says Lord Suffolk, " to use all 
the means, which God and nature have put into our 
hands." I am astonished, I am shocked, to hear such 
principles confessed; to hear them avowed in this house, 
or in this country. My Lords, I did not intend to en- 
croach so much on your attention, but I cannot repress 
my indignation — I feel myself impelled to speak. My 
Lords, we are called upon as members of this house, as 
men, as Christians, to protest against such horrible bar- 
barity! — " That God and nature have put into our hands!" 
What ideas of God and nature, that noble Lord may en- 
tertain, I know not; but I know, that such detestable 
principles are equally abhorrent to religion and human- 
ity. What! to attribute the sacred sanction of God 
and nature to the massacres of the Indian scalping-knife ! 
to the cannibal savage, torturing, murdering, devouring, 
drinking the blood of his mangled victims ! Such notions 
shock every precept of morality, every feeling of humanity, 
every sentiment of honor. These abominable principles, 
and this more abominable avowal of them, demand the 
most decisive indignation. 

I call upon that Right Reverend, and this most Learned 
Bench, to vindicate the religion of their God, to support 
the justice of their country. I call upon the bishops, to 
interpose the unsullied sanctity of their lawn; — upon the 
judges, to interpose the purity of their ermine, to save us 
from this pollution. I call upon the honor of your Lord- 
ships, to reverence the dignity of your ancestors, and to 
maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and humanity 
of my country, to vindicate the national character. I in- 
voke the genius of the constitution. From the tapestry 
that adorns these walls, the immortal ancestor of this 
noble lord frowns with indignation at the disgrace of his 
country. In vain did he defend the liberty, and establish 
the religion of Britain, against the tyranny of Rome, if 
these worse than Popish cruelties, and Inquisitorial prac- 
tices, are endured among us. To send forth the merciless 
cannibal, thirsting for blood! against whom? — your Pro- 
testant brethren! — to lay waste their country, to desolate 
their dwellings, and extirpate their race and name, by the 
aid and instrumentality of these horrible hounds of war I 

D D 



302 MODERN ELOQUENCE. 

Spain can np longer boast pre-eminence in barbarity. Sbe 
armed herself with bloodhounds, to extirpate the wretched 
natives of Mexico; we, more ruthless, loose these dogs of 
war against our countrymen in America, endeared to us 
by every tie that can sanctify humanity. I solemnly call 
upon your Lordships, and upon every order of men in 
the state, to stamp upon this infamous procedure, the in- 
delible stigma of the Public Abhorrence. More particu- 
larly, I call upon the holy prelates of our religion, to do 
away this iniquity; let them perform a lustration, to pu- 
rify the country from this deep and deadly sin.* 



Extract from Sir James Macintosh's Speech in Defence 
of Mr. Peltier, for a Libel on Napoleon Bonaparte, 
on the 2lst February, 1803. 

Gentlemen of the Jury, — The time is now come 
for me to address you on behalf of the unfortunate gentle- 
man, who is the defendant on this record. I cannot but 
feel, Gentlemen, how much I stand in need of your favor- 
able attention and indulgence. The charge which I have 
to defend, is surrounded with the most invidious topics 
of discussion; but they are not of my seeking. The case 
and the topics, which are inseparable from it, are brought 
here by the prosecutor. Here I find them, and here it is 
my duty to deal with them, as the interests of Mr. Peltier 
seem to me to require. He, by his choice and confidence, 
has cast on me a very arduous duty, which I could not 
decline, and which I can still less betray. He has a right 
to expect from me a faithful, a zealous, and a fearless 
defence ; and this his just expectation, according to the 
measure of my humble abilities, shall be fulfilled. I have 
said a fearless defence. Perhaps that word was unneces- 
sary in the place where I now stand. Intrepidity in the 
discharge of professional duty is so common a quality at 
the English Bar, that it has, thank God! long ceased to 



* " My Lords, I am old and weak, and at present unable to say more ; 
but my feelings and indignation were too strong, to have said less. I could 
not have slept this night in my bed, nor even reposed my head upon my 
pillow, without giving vent to my eternal abhorrence of such enormous 
and preposterous principles." 



MODERN ELOQUENCE. 303 

be a matter of boast or praise. If it had been otherwise, 
Gentlemen, if the Bar could have been silenced or over- 
awed by power, I may' presume to say, that an English 
Jury would not this day have been met to administer 
justice. Therefore I need scarcely say, that my defence 
shall be fearless, in a place where fear never entered any 
heart but that of a criminal. 

Gentlemen, there is one point of view in which this 
case seems to merit your most serious attention. The 
real prosecutor is the master of the greatest empire the 
civilized world ever saw: — the defendant is a defenceless 
proscribed exile. I consider this case, therefore, as the 
first of a long series of conflicts between the greatest power 
in the world, and the only free press remaining in 
Europe. Gentlemen, this distinction of the English Press 
is new — it is a proud and a melancholy distinction. Before 
the great earthquake of the French revolution had swal- 
lowed up all the asylums of free discussion on the conti- 
nent, we enjoyed that privilege, indeed, more fully than 
others, but we did not enjoy it exclusively. In Holland, 
in Switzerland, in the imperial towns of Germany, the 
press was either legally or practically free. Holland and 
Switzerland are no more; and, since the commencement 
of this prosecution, fifty imperial towns have been erased 
from the list of independent states, by one dash of the 
pen. Three or four still preserve a precarious and trem- 
bling existence. I will not say by what compliances they 
must purchase its continuance. I will not insult the 
feebleness of states, whose unmerited fall I do most bit- 
terly deplore. 

These governments were, in, many respects, one of the 
most interesting parts of the ancient system of Europe. 
The perfect security of such inconsiderable and feeble 
states, their undisturbed tranquillity, amidst the wars and 
conquests that surrounded them, attested, beyond any 
other part of the European system, the moderation, the 
justice, the civilization, to which Christian Europe had 
reached in modern times. Their weakness was protected 
only by the habitual reverence for justice, which, during 
a long series of ages, had grown up in Christendom. 
This was the only fortification which defended them 
against those mighty monarchs to whom they offered so 



304 MODERN ELOQUENCE. 

easy a prey. And till the French revolution, this was 
sufficient. Consider, for instance, the Republic of Geneva : 
think of her defenceless position in the very jaws of France; 
but think also of her undisturbed security, of her profound 
quiet, of the brilliant success with which she applied to 
industry and literature, while Louis XIV. was pouring 
his myriads into Italy before her gates; call to mind, if 
ages crowded into years have not effaced them from your 
memory, that happy period, when we scarcely dreamed 
more of the subjugation of the feeblest republic in Europe, 
than of the conquest of her mightiest empire, and tell me 
if you can imagine a spectacle more beautiful to the moral 
eye, or a more striking proof of progress in the noblest 
principles of civilization. These feeble states, these monu- 
ments of the justice of Europe, the asylum of peace, of 
industry, and of literature; the organs of public reason, 
the refuge of oppressed innocence and persecuted truth, 
have perished with those ancient principles, which were 
their sole guardians and protectors. They have been 
swallowed up by that fearful convulsion, which has shaken 
the uttermost corners of the earth. They are destroyed, 
and gone for ever! — One asylum of free discussion is still 
inviolate. There is still one spot in Europe where man 
can freely exercise his reason on the most important con- 
cerns of society, where he can boldly publish his judgment 
on the acts of the proudest and most powerful tyrants. 
The press of England is still free. It is guarded by the 
free constitution of our forefathers. It is guarded by the 
hearts and arms of Englishmen, and I trust I may venture 
to say, that if it be to fall, it will fall only under the ruins 
of the British Empire. It is an awful consideration, 
Gentlemen. Every other monument of European liberty 
has perished That ancient fabric which has been gradu- 
ally reared by the wisdom and virtue of our fathers still 
stands — It stands, thanks be to God! solid and entire — 
but it stands alone, and it stands amidst ruins ! Believing, 
then, as I do, that we are on the eve of a great struggle, 
that this is only the first battle between reason and 
power — that you have now in your hands, committed to 
your trust, the only remains of free discussion in Europe, 
now confined to this kingdom; addressing you, therefore, 
as the guardians of the most important interests of man- 



MODERN ELOQUENCE. 305 

kind ; convinced that the unfettered exercise of reason de- 
pends more on your present verdict, than on any other that 
was ever delivered by a jury, — I trust I may rely with 
confidence on the issue — I trust that you will consider 
yourselves as the advanced guard of liberty — as having 
this day, to fight the first battle of free discussion against 
the most formidable enemy that it ever encountered! 

Gentlemen, the French revolution — I must pause, after 
I have uttered words which present such an overwhelming 
idea — but I have not now to engage in an enterprise so 
far beyond my force as that of examining and judging that 
tremendous revolution — I have only to consider the char- 
acter of the factions which it must have left behind it. 

The French revolution began with great and fatal errors. 
These errors produced atrocious crimes. A mild and fee- 
ble monarchy was succeeded by bloody anarchy^ which 
very shortly gave birth to military despotism. France, in 
a few years, described the whole circle of human society. 

All this was in the order of nature — when every prin- 
ciple of authority and civil discipline, when every principle 
which enables some men to command and disposes others 
to obey was extirpated from the mind by atrocious theo- 
ries, and still more atrocious examples; when every old 
institution was trampled down with contumely, and every 
new institution covered in its cradle with blood; when 
the principle of property itself, the sheet-anchor of society, 
was annihilated; when in the persons of the new pos- 
sessors, whom the poverty of language obliges us to call 
proprietors, it was contaminated in its source by robbery 
and murder, and it became separated from that education 
and those manners, from that general presumption of su- 
perior knowledge and more scrupulous probity which form 
its only liberal titles to respect ; when the people were 
taught to despise every thing old, and compelled to detest 
everything new; there remained only one principle strong 
enough to hold society together, a principle utterly incom- 
patible, indeed, with liberty, and unfriendly to civilization 
itself, a tyrannical and barbarous principle, but, in that 
miserable condition of human affairs, a refuge from still 
more intolerable evils — I mean the principle of military 
power, which gains strength from that confusion and blood- 
shed, in which all the other elements of society are dis- 



306 MODERN ELOQUENCE. 

solved, and which, in these terrible extremities, is the ce- 
ment that preserves it from total destruction. 

Under such circumstances, Bonaparte usurped the su- 
preme power in France — I say usurped, because an illegal 
assumption of power is an usurpation. But usurpation, 
in its strongest moral sense, is scarcely applicable to a 
period of lawless and savage anarchy. The guilt of mili- 
tary usurpation, in truth, belongs to the authors of those 
confusions which sooner or later give birth to such an 
usurpation. 

As for the wretched populace who were made the blind 
and senseless instrument of so many crimes, whose frenzy 
can now be reviewed by a good mind with scarce any 
moral sentiment but that of compassion — that miserable 
multitude of beings, scarcely human, have already fallen 
into a brutish forgetfulness of the very atrocities which 
they themselves perpetrated. They have already forgotten 
all the acts of their drunken fury. If you ask one of them, 
who destroyed that magnificent monument of religion and 
art? or who perpetrated that massacre? They stupidly 
answer, the Jacobins! Tho he who gives the answer was 
probably one of these Jacobins himself; so that a traveller, 
ignorant of French history, might suppose the Jacobins to 
be the name of some Tartar horde, who, after laying waste 
France for ten years, were at last expelled by the native 
inhabitants. They have passed from senseless rage to 
stupid quiet. Their delirium is followed by lethargy. 

Some of them, indeed — the basest of the race — the 
Sophists, the Rhetors, the Poet-laureats of murder — who 
were cruel only from cowardice, and calculating selfish- 
ness, are perfectly willing to transfer their venal pens to 
any government that does not disdain their infamous sup- 
port. These men, republicans from servility, who pub- 
lished rhetorical panegyrics on massacre, and who reduced 
plunder to a system of ethics, are as ready to preach sla- 
very as anarchy. But the more daring — I had almost 
said the more respectable ruffians, cannot so easily bend 
their heads under the yoke. These fierce spirits have not 
lost " the unconquerable will, the study of revenge, im- 
mortal hater — They leave the luxuries of servitude to the 
mean and dastardly hypocrites, to the Belials and Mam- 
mons of the infernal faction. They pursue their old end 



MODERN ELOQUENCE. 307 

of tyranny under their old pretext of liberty. The recol- 
lection of their unbounded power renders every inferior 
condition irksome and vapid, and their former atrocities 
form, if I may so speak, a sort of moral destiny which ir- 
resistibly impels them to the perpetration of new crimes. 
They have no place' left for penitence on earth; they labor 
under the most awful proscription of opinion that ever was 
pronounced against human beings. They have cut down 
every bridge by which they could retreat into the society 
of men. — Awakened from their dreams of democracy, the 
noise subsided that deafened their ears to the voice of hu- 
manity, the film fallen from their eyes which hid from 
them the blackness of their own deeds, haunted by the 
memory of their inexpiable guilt, condemned daily to look 
on the faces of those whom their hands made widows and 
orphans ; they are goaded and scourged by these real fu- 
ries, and hurried into the tumult of new crimes, which 
will drown the cries of remorse: or if they be too depraved 
for remorse, will silence the curses of mankind. Tyran- 
nical power is their only refuge from the just vengeance 
of their fellow creatures; murder is their only means of 
usurping power. They have no taste, no occupation, no 
pursuit, but power and blood. If their hands are tied, 
they must at least have the luxury of murderous projects. 
They have drank too deeply of human blood ever to re- 
linquish their cannibal appetite. 

I am aware, Gentlemen, that I have already abused 
your indulgence ; but I must entreat you to bear with me 
for a short time longer, to allow me to suppose a case 
which might have occurred, in which you will see the 
horrible consequences of enforcing rigorously principles of 
law, which I cannot contest, against political writers. We 
might have been at peace with France dming the whole 
of that terrible period which elapsed between August 1792 
and 1794, which has been usually called the reign of Robe- 
spierre! The only series of crimes, perhaps, in history, 
which, in spite of the common disposition to exaggerate 
extraordinary facts, has been beyond measure under-rated 
in public opinion. I say this, Gentlemen, after an investi- 
gation, which I think entitles me to affirm it with confi- 
dence. Men s minds were oppressed by the atrocity and 
the multitude of crimes ; their humanity and their indo- 



308 MODERN ELOQUENCE, 

lence took refuge in scepticism from such an overwhelming 
mass of guilt; and the consequence was, that all these un- 
paralleled enormities, tho proved, not only with the fullest 
historical, but with the strictest judicial evidence, were at 
the time only half believed, and are now scarcely half re- 
membered. When these atrocities were daily perpetrat- 
ing, of which the greatest part are as little known to the 
public in general as the campaigns of Genghis Khan, but 
are still protected from the scrutiny of men by the im- 
mensity of those voluminous records of guilt in which they 
are related, and under the mass of which they will lie bu- 
ried, till some historian be found with patience and courage 
enough to drag them forth into light, for the shame, in- 
deed, but for the instruction of mankind; when these 
ciimes were perpetrating, which had the peculiar malig- 
nity, from the pretexts with which they were covered, of 
making the noblest objects of human pursuit seem odious 
and detestable; which had almost made the names of 
liberty, reformation, and humanity, synonymous with 
anarchy, robbery, and murder; which thus threatened not 
only to extinguish every principle of improvement, to ar- 
rest the progress of civilized society, and to disinherit 
future generations of that rich succession, which they were 
entitled to expect from the knowledge and wisdom of the 
present, but to destroy the civilization of Europe, which 
never gave such a proof of its vigor and robustness, as in 
being able to resist their destructive power ; when all these 
horrors were acting in the greatest empire of the Continent, 
I will ask my learned friend, if we had then been at peace 
with France, how English writers were to relate them so 
as to escape the charge of libelling a friendly Government? 
When Robespierre, in the debates in the National Con- 
vention on the mode of murdering their blameless Sove- 
reign, objected to the formal and tedious mode of murder 
called a trial, and proposed to put him immediately to 
death without trial, " on the principles of insurrection" 
because, to doubt the guilt of the King would be to doubt 
of the innocence of the Convention, and if the King were 
not a traitor, the Convention must be rebels; would my 
learned friend have had an English writer state all this 
with " decorum and moderation? 1 * would he have had an 
English writer state, that tho this reasoning was not per- 



MODERN ELOQUENCE. 309 

fectly agreeable to our national laws, or perhaps to our 
national prejudices, yet it was not for him to make any 
observations on the judicial proceedings of foreign states? 

When Marat, in the same Convention, called for two 
hundred and seventy thousand heads, must our English 
writers have said, that the remedy did, indeed, seem to 
their weak judgment rather severe; but that it was not 
for them to judge the conduct of so illustrious an assembly 
as the National Convention, or the suggestions of so en- 
lightened a statesman as M. Marat? 

When that Convention resounded with applause at the 
news of several hundred aged priests being thrown into 
the Loire, and particularly at the exclamation of Carrier, 
who communicated the intelligence, " What a revolution- 
ary torrent is the Loire 7" when these suggestions and 
narratives of murder, which have hitherto been only hinted 
and whispered in the most secret cabals, in the darkest 
caverns of banditti, were triumphantly uttered, patiently 
endured, and even loudly applauded by an assembly of 
seven hundred men, acting in the sight of all Europe, 
would my learned friend have wished that there had been 
found in England a single writer so base as to deliberate 
upon the most safe, decorous, and polite manner of relat- 
ing all these things to his countrymen? 

When Carrier ordered five hundred children under 
fourteen years to be shot, the greater part of whom escaped 
the fire from their size, when the poor victims ran for pro- 
tection to the soldiers, and were bayonetted clinging round 
their knees ! would my friend — but I cannot pursue the 
strain of interrogation! it is too much! It would be a 
violence which I cannot practice on my own feelings — it 
would be an outrage to my friend — it would be an affront 
to you — it would be an insult to humanity. No! Better, 
ten thousand times better, would it be that every press in 
the world were burnt, that the very use of letters were 
abolished, that we were returned to the honest ignorance 
of the rudest times — than that the results of civilization 
should be made subservient to the purposes of barbarism — 
than that literature should be employed to teach a tolera- 
tion for cruelty, to weaken moral hatred for guilt, to de- 
prave and brutalize the human mind. I know that I speak 
my friend's feelings as well as my own, when I say God 



310 MODERN ELOQUENCE. 

forbid that the dread of any punishment should ever make 
any Englishman an accomplice in so corrupting his coun- 
trymen, a public teacher of depravity and barbarity! 

In the Court where we are now met, Cromwell twice 
sent a satirist on his tyranny to be convicted and punished 
as a libeller, and in this Court, almost in sight of the scaf- 
fold streaming with the blood of his Sovereign, within 
hearing of the clash of his bayonets which drove out Par- 
liaments with contumely, two successive juries rescued 
the intrepid satirist* from his fangs, and sent out with 
defeat and disgrace the Usurper's Attorney-General from 
what he had the insolence to call his Court! Even then, 
Gentlemen, when all law and liberty were trampled under 
the feet of a military banditti ; when those great crimes 
were perpetrated on a high place and with a high hand 
against those who were the objects of public veneration, 
which more than any thing else upon earth overwhelm the 
minds of men, break their spirits, and confound their moral 
sentiments, obliterate the distinctions between right and 
wrong in their understanding, and teach the multitude to 
feel no longer any reverence for that justice which they 
thus see triumphantly dragged at the chariot-wheels of a 
tyrant; — even then, when this unhappy country, trium- 
phant indeed abroad, but enslaved at home, had no pros- 
pect but that of a long succession of tyrants wading through 
slaughter to a throne — even then, I say, when all seemed 
lost, the unconquerable spirit of English liberty survived 
in the hearts of English jurors. That spirit is, I trust in 
God, not extinct: and if any modern tyrant were, in the 
drunkenness of his insolence, to hope to overawe an Eng- 
lish jury, I trust and I believe that they would tell him: 
" Our ancestors braved the bayonets of Cromwell — we 
bid defiance to yours. Contempsi Catilince gladios — non 
pertimescam tuosl" 

What could be such a tyrant's means of overawing a 
jury? — As long as their country exists, they are girt round 
with impenetrable armor. Till the destruction of their 
country, no danger can fall upon them for the performance 
of their duty, and I do trust that there is no Englishman 
so unworthy of life as to desire to outlive England. But if 

* Lilburne. 



MODERN ELOQUENCE. 311 

any of us are condemned to the cruel punishment of sur- 
viving our country — if in the inscrutable counsels of Pro- 
vidence, this favored seat of Justice and Liberty, this 
noblest work of human wisdom and virtue, be destined to 
destruction, which I shall not be charged with national 
prejudice for saying, would be the most dangerous wound 
ever inflicted on civilization; at least, let us carry with us 
into our sad exile, the consolation that we ourselves have 
not violated the rights of hospitality to exiles — that w© 
have not torn from the altar, the suppliant who claimed 
protection as the voluntary victim of loyalty and con- 
science ! 

Gentlemen, I now leave this unfortunate gentleman in 
your hands. His character and his situation might in- 
terest your humanity — but, on his behalf, I only ask justice 
from you. I only ask a favorable construction of what 
cannot be said to be more than ambiguous language, and 
this, you will soon be told from the highest authority, is 
a part of justice. 



ON THE 

MANNER OF READING VERSE. 



" Whatever difficulties we may find in reading prose, 
they are greatly increased when the composition is in 
verse; and more particularly if the verse be rhyme. The 
regularity of the feet, and the sameness of sound in rhym- 
ing verse, strongly solicits the voice to a sameness of tone ; 
and tone, unless directed by a judicious ear, is apt to de- 
generate into a song, and a song, of all others, the most 
disgusting to a person of just taste. If, therefore, there 
are few who read prose with propriety, there are still fewer 
who succeed in verse; they either want that equable and 
harmonious flow of sound which distinguishes it from loose, 
unmeasured composition, or they have not a sufficient de- 
licacy of ear to keep the harmonious smoothness of verse 
from sliding into a whining cant; nay, so agreeable is this 
cant to many readers, that a simple and natural delivery 
of verse seems tame and insipid, and much too familiar 
for the dignity of the language. So pernicious are bad 
habits in eveiy exercise of the faculties, that they not only 
lead us to false objects of beauty and propriety, but at last 
deprive us of the veiy power of perceiving the mistake. 
For those, therefore, whose ears are not just, and who are 
totally deficient in a true taste for the music of poetry, 
the best method of avoiding this impropriety is to read 
verse exactly as if it were prose; for tho this maybe said 
to be an error, it is certainly an error on the safer side. 

"To say, however, as some do, that the pronunciation 
of verse is entirely destitute of song, and that it is no more 
than a just pronunciation of prose, is as distant from truth, 
as the whining cant we have been speaking of, is from 
true poetic harmony. Poetry without song is a body 
without a soul. The tune of this song is, indeed, difficult 
to hit; but when once it is hit, it is sure to give the most 
exquisite pleasure. It excites in the hearer the most eager 
desire of imitation; and if this desire be not accompanied 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 313 

by a just taste of good instruction, it generally substitutes 
the turn ti, turn ti, as it is called, for simple, elegant, poetic 
harmony. 

" It must, however, be confessed, that elegant readers 
of verse often verge so nearly on what is called sing song, 
without falling into it, that it is no wonder those who at- 
tempt to imitate them, slide into that blemish which borders 
so nearly on a beauty. 

" The truth is, the pronunciation of verse is a species 
of elocution very distinct from the pronunciation of prose : 
both of them have nature for their basis; but one is com- 
mon, familiar, and practical nature; the other beautiful, 
elevated, and ideal nature; the latter as different from the 
former as the elegant step of a minuet is from the common 
motions in walking. Accordingly, we find, there are many 
who can read prose well, who are entirely at a loss for the 
pronunciation of verse." Walker. 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 



Lines Written on Visiting a Scene in Argyleshire. 

At the silence of twilight's contemplative hour, 

I have mus'd in a sorrowful mood, 
On the wind-shaken weeds that embosom the bower, 

Where the home of my forefathers stood. 
All mind and wild is their roofless abode, 

And lonely the dark raven's sheltering tree; 
And travel'd by few is the grass-cover'd road, 
Where the hunter of deer and the warrior trode 

To his hills that encircle the sea. 

Yet wandering, I found on my ruinous walk, 

By the dial-stone aged and green, 
One rose of the wilderness left on its stalk, 

To mark where a garden had been. 
Like a brotherless hermit, the last of its race, 

All wild in the silence of Nature, it drew 

E E 



314 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 

From each wandering sunbeam, a lonely embrace ; 
For the night-weed and thorn overshadow'd the place 
Where the flower of my forefathers grew. 

Sweet bud of the wilderness ! emblem of all 

That remains in this desolate heart ! 
The fabric of bliss to its centre may fall; 

But patience shall never depart! 
Tho the wilds of enchantment, all vernal and bright, 

In the days of delusion, by fancy combin'd 
With the vanishing phantoms of love and delight, 
Abandon my soul like a dream of the night, 

And leave but a desert behind. 

Be hush'd, my dark spirit! for wisdom condemns 

When the faint and the feeble deplore ; 
Be strong as the rock of the ocean, that stems 

A thousand wild waves on the shore! 
Through the perils of chance, and the scowl of disdain, 

May thy front be unalterd, thy courage elate ! 
Yea! even the name I have worshipp'd in vain 
Shall awake not the sigh of remembrance again; 

To bear, is to conquer our fate. Campbell* 



The Soldiers Dream. 
Our bugles sang truce — for the night-cloud had lowered, 

And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky; 
And thousands had sunk on the ground overpower d, 

The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die. 
When, reposing that night on my pallet of straw, 

By the wolf-scaring faggot that guarded the slain, 
At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw, 

And thrice ere the morning I dream'd it again. 

Methought from the battle-field's dreadful array, 
Far, far I had roam'd on a desolate track: 

'Twas autumn-r-and sunshine arose on the way 

To the home of my fathers, that welcom'd me back. 

I flew to the pleasant fields, travers'd so oft 
^ In life's morning march, when my bosom was young; 

I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft, 

And I well knew the strains that the corn-reapers sung. 



Extracts in rhyme. 315 

Then pledg'd we the wine-cup, and fondly I swore, 
From my home and my weeping friends never to part ; 

My little ones kiss'd me a thousand times o'er, 
And my wife sobb'd aloud in her fulness of heart: 

" Stay, stay with us — rest, thou art weary and worn!" 
And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay — 

But sorrow return'd with the dawning of morn, 
And the voice in my dreaming ear — melted away. 

Campbell* 



Glenara. 
Oh! heard you yon pibroch sound sad in the gale, 
Where a band cometh slowly with weeping and wail? 
"lis the Chief of Glenara laments for his dear; 
And her sire and her people are called to her bier. 

Glenara came first, with the mourners and shroud; 
Her kinsmen they folio w'd, but mourn' d not aloud; 
Their plaids all their bosoms were folded around; 
They march'd all in silence — they look'd to the ground. 

In silence they reach'd over mountain and moor, 
To a heath, where the oak-tree grew lonely and hoar, 
" Now here let us place the gray-stone of her cairn- 
Why speak ye no word?" said Glenara the stern. 

" And tell me, I charge you, ye clan of my spouse, 
Why fold ye your mantles, why cloud ye your brows?" 
So spake the rude chieftain: no answer is made, 
But each mantle unfolding, a dagger display'd. 

" T dream'd of my lady, I dream'd of her shroud," 
Cried a voice from the kinsmen, all wrathful and loud; 
u And empty that shroud, and that coffin did seem: 
Glenara! Glenara! now read me my dream!" 

Oh! pale grew the cheek of that chieftain I ween; 
When the shroud was unclos'd, and no body was seen: 
Then a voice from the kinsmen spoke louder in scorn — 
'Twas the youth that had lov'd the fair Ellen of Lorn — 

a I dream'd of my lady, I dream'd of her grief, 
I dream'd that her lord was a barbarous chief; 
On a rock of the ocean fair Ellen did seem: 
Glenara! Glenara! now read me my dream!" 



316 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 

In dust low the traitor has knelt to the ground, 

And the desert reveal'd where his lady was found; 

From a rock of the ocean that beauty is borne ; 

Now joy to the house of fair Ellen of Lorn! Campbell. 



The Star of Bethlehem. 
When marshalFd on the mighty plain, 

The glittering host bestud the sky; 
One star alone, of all the train, 

Can fix the sinner s wandering eye. 

Hark! hark! to God the chorus breaks, 
Prom every host, from every gem ; 

But one alone the Saviour speaks, 
It is the star of Bethlehem. 

Once on the raging seas I rode, 

The storm was loud — the night was dark, 
The ocean yawn'd — and rudely blow'd 

The wind that toss'd my foundering bark. 

Deep horror then my vitals froze, 

Death-struck, I ceas'd the tide to stem; 

When suddenly a star arose, — 
It was the star of Bethlehem. 

It was my guide, my light, my all, 
It bade my dark forebodings cease; 

And through the storm, and danger's thrall, 
It led me to the port of peace. 

Now safely moor'd — my perils o'er, 

I'll sing, first in night's diadem, 
For ever and for evermore, 

The Star!— The Star of Bethlehem! 

H. K White. 



< + »mm»amMfi i *»i *H t0* & 



On Prayer, 
Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, 

Utter'd or unexpress'd; 
The motion of a hidden fire, 

That trembles in the breast. 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 317 

Prayer is the burthen of a sigh ; 

The falling of a tear; 
The upward glancing of an eye, 

When none but God is near. 

Prayer is the simplest form of speech 

That infant lips can try: 
Prayer, the sublimest strains that reach 

The Majesty on high. 

Prayer is th& Christians vital breath ; 

The Christians native air; 
His watchword at the gates of death; 

He enters heaven by prayer 

Prayer is the contrite sinner's voice, 

Returning from his ways; 
While angels in their songs rejoice, 

And say, " Behold he prays!" 

The saints, in prayer, appear as one, 

In word, and deed, and mind, 
When with the Father and his Son, 

Their fellowship they find. 

Nor prayer is made on earth alone: 

The Holy Spirit pleads ; 
And Jesus, on the eternal throne, 

For sinners intercedes. 

O Thou, by whom we come to God, 

The Life, the Truth, the Way! 
The path of prayer thyself hast trod; 

Lord, teach us how to pray. Montgomery. 



The Voice of Praise. 
There is a voice of magic power 

To charm the old, delight the young — 
In lordly hall, in rustic bower, 

In every clime, in every tongue, 

Howe'er its sweet vibration rung, 
In whispers low, in poet's lays, 

There lives not one who has not hung 
Enraptur'd on the voice of praise. 



318 EXTRACTS IN RHYME, 

The timid child, at that soft voice, 
Lifts for a moment's space the eye; 

It bids the fluttering heart rejoice, 
And stays the step prepar'd to fly: 
'Tis pleasure breathes that short quick sigh, 

And flushes o'er that rosy face; 
Whilst shame and infant modesty 

Shrink back with hesitating grace. 

The lovely maidens dimpled cheek 

At that sweet voice still deeper glows; 
Her quivering lips in vain would seek 

To hide the bliss her eyes disclose; 

The charm her sweet confusion shows 
Oft springs from some low broken word: 

O praise ! to her how sweetly flows 
Thine accent from the loved one heard! 

The hero, whfcn a people's voice 

Proclaims their darling victor near, 
Feels he not then his soul rejoice, 

Their shouts of love, of praise to hear? 

Yes! fame to generous minds is dear — 
It pierces to their inmost core ; 

He weeps who never shed a tear; 
He trembles who ne'er shook before. 

The poet too — ah! well I deem, 

Small is the need the tale to tell ; 
Who knows not that his thought, his dream, 

On thee at noon, at midnight, dwell? 

Who knows not that thy magic spell 
Can charm his every care away? 

In memory cheer his gloomy cell; 
In hope can lend a deathless day. 

'Tis sweet to watch Affections eye; 

To mark the tear with love replete; 
To feel the softly-breathing sigh, 

When Friendship's lips the tones repeat; 

But oh! a thousand times more sweet 
The praise of those we love to hear! 

Like balmy showers in summer heat, 
It falls upon the greedy ear. 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 319 

The lover lulls his rankling wound, 

By dwelling on his fair one's name; 
The mother listens for the sound 

Of her young warriors growing fame. 

Thy voice can soothe the mourning dame, 
Of her soul's wedded partner riven, 

Who cherishes the hallow'd flame, 
Parted on earth, to meet in heaven! — 

That voice can quiet passion's mood; 

Can humble merit raise on high; 
And from the wise, and from the good, 

It breathes of immortality ! 

There is a lip, there is an eye, 
Where most I love to see it shine, 

To hear it speak, to feel it sigh — 
My mother, need I say — 'tis thine ! 

Mary Russel Mitford. 



Genius, 
What is Genius? — 'Tis a flame 
Kindling all the human frame; 
'Tis a ray that lights the eye, 
Soft in love, in battle high. 
'Tis the lightning of the mind, 
Unsubdu'd and undefin d ; 
'Tis the flood that pours along 
The full clear melody of song; 
'Tis the sacred boon of heaven, 
To its choicest favorites given. 
They who feel can paint it well — 
What is Genius? — Byron, tell! Anon. 



The Dying Soldier, 
The tumult of battle had ceas'd-— high in air 
The standard of Britain triumphantly wav'd; 
And the remnant of foes had all fled in despair, 
Whom night, intervening, from slaughter had sav'd; 

When a veteran was seen, by the light of his lamp, 
Slow-pacing the bounds of the carcass-strewn plain; 
Not base his intent, — for he quitted his camp 
To comfort the dying, — not plunder the slain. 



320 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 

Tho dauntless in war, at a story of wo 

Down his age-furrow'd cheeks the warm tears often ran; 

Alike proud to conquer, or spare a brave fo, 

He fought like a hero! — " but felt like a man!" 

As he counted the slain, — " Ah, conquest ! " he cried, 
" Thou art glorious indeed, but how dearly thou'rt won!" 
" Too dearly, alas ! " a voice faintly replied — 
It thrill'd through his heart! — 'twas the voice of his son! 

He listen d aghast! — all was silent again; 
He search' d by the beams which his lamp feebly shed, 
And found his brave son amid hundreds of slain, 
The corse of a comrade supporting his head! 

" My Henry ! " — the sorrowful parent exclaim'd, 
" Has fate rudely wither'd thy laurels so soon?" 
The youth op'd his eyes as he heard himself nam'd, 
And awoke for a while from his death-boding swoon. 

He gaz'd on his father, who knelt by his side, 

And seizing his hand, press'd it close to his heart; 

" Thank heaven, thou art here, my dear father!" he cried; 

i' For soon! ah, too soon, we for ever must part! 

" Tho death early calls me from all that I love ! 
From glory, from thee, yet perhaps 'twill be given 
To meet thee again in yon regions above V 3 
His eyes beam'd with hope as he fix'd them on heaven. 

" Then — let not thy bosom with vain sorrow swell; 

Ah! check, ere it rises, the heart-rending sigh! 

I fought for my king! — for my country! — I fell 

In defence of their rights : and I glory to die ! " Anon. 



The Evening Cloud. 
A cloud lay cradled near the setting sun, 

A gleam of crimson ting'd its braided snow: 
Long had I watch'd the glory moving on, 

O'er the still radiance of the lake below. 
Tranquil its spirit seem'd, and floated slow! 

Even in its very motion there was rest; 
While every breath of eve that chanc'd to blow. 

Wafted the traveler to the beauteous west. 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 321 

Emblem, methought, of the departed soul! 

To whose white robe the gleam of bliss is given; 
And by the breath of Mercy made to roll 

Right onward to the golden gates of heaven, 
Where, to the eye of Faith, it peaceful lies, 

And tells to man his glorious destinies. Wilson. 



The Contrast— Feb. 17, 1820. 

Windsor Terrace. 

I saw him last on this terrace proud, 
Walking in health and gladness, 
Begirt with his court, and in all the crowd, 
Not a single look of sadness. 

I've stood by the crowd beside the bier, 
When not a word was spoken; 
But every eye was dim with a tear, 
And the silence by sobs was broken. 

I've heard the earth on his coffin pour, 
To the muffled drum's deep rolling, 
While the minute-gun with its solemn roar 
Drowned the death-bell's tolling. 

The time since he walk'd in his glory thus, 
To the grave till I saw him carried, 
Was an age of the mightiest change to us y 
But to him a night unvaried. 

We have fought the fight; from his lofty throne 
The foe of our land we have tumbled, 
And it gladden'd each eye — save his alone, 
For whom that foe we humbled. 

A Daughter beloved — a Queen — a Son — 
A Son's sole child — have perish'd; 
And sad was each heart — save the only one 
By which they were fondest cherish'd. 

For his eyes were seal'd, and his mind was dark, 

And he sat in his age's lateness, 

Like a vision thron'd — as a solemn mark 

Of the frailty of human greatness. 



322 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 

His silver beard o'er his bosom spread, 
Un vexed by life's commotion; 
Like a yearly lengthening snow-drift, shed 
On the calm of a frozen ocean. 

Still o'er him oblivion's waters lay, 

Tho the stream of time kept flowing; 

When they spoke of our King, — was but to say, 

That the old mans strength was going. 

At intervals, thus, the waves disgorge, 
By weakness rent asunder, 
A piece of the wreck of the Royal George, 
For the people's pity and wonder. 

He is gone at length — he is laid in dust — 
Death's hand his slumbers breaking, 
For the coffin d sleep of the good and just, 
Is a sure and a blissful waking. 

His people's heart is his funeral urn, 

And should sculptur'd stone be denied him, 

There will his name be found, when in turn 

We shall lay our heads beside him. Anon. 



The Mariner's Dream. 
In slumbers of midnight the sailor boy lay, 

His hammock swung loose at the sport of the wind: 
But, watch-worn and weary, his cares flew away, 

And visions of happiness danc'd o'er his mind. 

He dream'd of his home, of his dear native bowers, 
And pleasures that waited on life's merry morn; 

While memory each scene gaily cover'd with flowers, 
And restor'd every rose, but conceal'd eveiy thorn. 

Then fancy her magical pinions spread wide, 
And bade the young dreamer in ecstacy rise; — 

Now far, far behind him the green waters glide, 
And the cot of his forefathers blesses his eyes. 

The jessamine clambers in flower o'er the thatch, 

And the swallow chirps sweet from her nest in the wall; 

All trembling with transport, he raises the latch, 
And the voices of lov'd ones reply to his call. 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME* 323 

A father bends o'er him with looks of delight; 

His cheek is bedew'd with a mother's warm tear; 
And the lips of the boy in a love-kiss unite 

With the lips of the maid whom his bosom holds dear. 
The heart of the sleeper beats high in his breast, 

Joy quickens his pulses, his hardships seem o'er; 
And a murmur of happiness steals through his rest — 

H O God! thou hast bless'd me, I ask for no more." 
Ah ! whence is that flame which now glares in his eye ? 

Ah! what is that sound which now bursts on his ear? 
Tis the lightning's red gleam, painting hell on the sky! 

'Tis the crashing of thunders, the groan of the sphere! 
He springs from his hammock, he flies to the deck, — 

Amazement confronts him with images dire — 
Wild winds and mad waves drive the vessel a wreck — 

The masts fly in splinters — the shrouds are on fire. 
Like mountains the billows tremendously swell — 

In vain the lost wretch calls on mercy to save ; 
Unseen hands of spirits are ringing his knell, 

And the death-angel flaps his broad wing o'er the wave ! 
Oh ! Sailor Boy, wo to thy dream of delight ! 

In darkness dissolves the gay frost-work of bliss — 
Where now is the picture that fancy touch'd bright, 

Thy parents' fond pressure, and love's honied kiss? 
Oh, Sailor Boy! Sailor Boy! never again 

Shall home, love, or kindred, thy wishes repay; 
Unbless'd and unhonor'd, down deep in the main 

Full many a fathom, thy frame shall decay. 
No tomb shall e'er plead to remembrance for thee, 

Or redeem form of fame from the merciless surge — 
But the white foam of waves shall thy winding-sheet be, 

And winds in the midnight of winter thy dirge ! 
On a bed of sea-green flowers thy limbs shall be laid ; 

Around thy white bones the red coral shall grow; 
Of thy fair yellow locks, threads of amber be made, 

And every part suit to thy mansion below. 
Days, months, years, and ages, shall circle away, 

And still the vast waters above thee shall roll; 
Frail short-sighted mortals their doom must obey — 

Oh, Sailor Boy! Sailor Boy! peace to thy soul! 

Dimond. 



324 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 



Hymn to Nature. 
'Twa9 eve's pensive twilight, the valley was gray, 

Between the dark trees almost deepen'd to night; 
And the golden-streak'd west seem'd the memory of day; 

The brook yet reflected the soft amber light. 

And all was so still, and so fragrant around, 

That the fragrance did seem from the stillness to creep ; 

It seem'd as if Nature repos'd on the ground, 

And the odor that rose were the breath of her sleep. 

The nightingale singing within her green cell, 

Made the woods sweetly mourn with the strains of her 
ditty; 

Oh, her notes sobb'd so true, 'twas like Grief when she tells 
AH the woes of her heart to the listening of Pity. 

Nought was heard, when she paus'd, but the sound of the 
rill, 

With its little lone music so silvery and meek, 
And the sweet lisping fall 'mid the landscape so still, 

Seem'd as first infant essays of Silence to speak. 

The moon, slowly rising behind the tall trees, 

Her silver globe seem'd to suspend from the pine — 

'Twas the calm lamp of silence — the leaves felt no breeze; 
And the world at the moment seem'd formed but to shine. 

All sooth'd and subdu'd in the midst of the scene, 
God of Nature ! I cried, here Religion may kneel — 

This temple thou fillest! — majestic, serene — 

On this turf let me worship ! — the Godhead I feel. 

Brandon. 



The Orphans. 
My chaise the village inn had gain'd, 
Just as the setting sun's last ray 
Tipp'd with refulgent gold the vane 
Of the old church across the way. 

Across the way I silent sped, 

The time till supper to beguile 

In moralizing o'er the dead, 

That moulder'd round the ancient pile. 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 325 

There many an humble green grave shew'd 

Where want, and pain, and toil, did rest ; 

And many a nattering stone I view'd, 

O'er those who once had wealth possess'd. 

A faded beech its shadow brown 

Threw o'er a grave where sorrow slept, 

On which, tho scarce with grass o'ergrown, 

Two ragged children sat and wept. 

A piece of bread between them lay. 

Which neither seem'd inclin'd to take; 

And yet they look'd so much a prey 

To want, it made my heart to ache. 

" My little children, let me know 

Why you in such distress appear? 

And why you wasteful from you throw 

That bread which many a heart would cheer?" 

The little boy, in accents sweet, 

Replied, while tears each other chas'd; — 

" Lady, we've not enough to eat, 

And if we had, we would not waste. 

But sister Mary's naughty grown, 

And will not eat, what e'er I say, 

Tho sure I am, the bread's her own, 

And she has tasted none to-day." 

" Indeed" (the wan-starv'd Mary said) 
" Till Henry eats, I'll eat no more'; 
For yesterday I got some bread; 
He's had none since the day before." 

My heart did swell, my bosom heave ; 
I felt as tho depriv'd of speech ; — 
I silent sat upon the grave, 
And press'd a clay-cold hand of each. 

With looks that told a tale of wo, 
With looks that spoke a grateful heart, 
The shivering boy did nearer draw, 
And thus their tale of wo impart: — 
" Before my father went away, 
Entic'd by bad men o'er the sea, 
Sister and I did nought but play, — 
W T e liv'd beside yon great ash-tree. 

F F 



326 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 

But then poor mother did so cry, 

And look'd so chang'd, I cannot tell — 

She told us that she soon should die, 

And bade us love each other well. 

She said, that, when the war was o'er, 

Perhaps we might our father see; 

But if we never saw him more, 

That God our father then would be. 

She kiss'd us both, and then she died — 

And we no more a mother have — 

Here many a day we sat and cried 

Together, on poor mother's grave. 

But then our father came not here; 

I thought if we could find the sea, 

We should be sure to meet him there, 

And once again might happy be. 

We hand in hand went many a mile, 

And ask'd our way of all we met, 

And some did sigh, and some did smile, 

And we of some did victuals get. 

But when we reach' d the sea, and found 

'Twas one great water round us spread, 

We thought that father must be drown'd, 

And cried, and wish'd we both were dead. 

So we return'd to mother's grave, 

And only long with her to be ; 

For Goody, when this bread she gave, 

Said father died beyond the sea. 

Then, since no parents have we here, 

Well go and seek for God around; 

Lady! pray can you tell us where 

That God our father may be found? 

He stays in heaven, mother said, 
And Goody says that mother's there; 
So, if she knows we want his aid, 
I think, perhaps, she'll send him here." 

I clasp'd the prattlers to my heart, 
And cried — " Come both, and live with me- 
111 clothe you, feed you, give you rest, 
And will a second mother be. 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 327 

And God will be your father still — 

'Twas he in mercy sent me here, 

To teach you to obey his will, 

Your steps to guide, your hearts to cheer." Anon. 

Love of Country. 
Breathes there a man with soul so dead, 
Who never to himself hath said, 

This is my own, my native land! 
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd, 
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd 

From wandering on a foreign strand? 
If such there breathe, go, mark him well; 
For him no minstrel raptures swell; 
High tho his titles, proud his name, 
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim; 
Despite those titles, power, and pelf, 
The wretch, concentred all in self, 
Living, shall forfeit fair renown, 
And, doubly dying, shall go down 
To the vile dust, whence he sprung, 
Unwept, unhonor'd, and unsung. 

O Caledonia! stern and wild, 
Meet nurse for a poetic child! 
Land of brown heath, and shaggy wood, 
Land of the mountain and the flood, 
Land of my sires ! what mortal hand 
Can e'er untie the filial band 
That knits me to thy rugged strand! 
Still as I view each well-known scene, 
Think what is now, and what hath been, 
Seems as to me, of all bereft, 
Sole friends thy woods and streams were left; 
And thus I love them better still, 
Even in extremity of ill. 
By Yarrow's stream, still let me stray, 
Tho none should guide my feeble way; 
Still feel the breeze down Ettrick break, 
Altho it chill my wither'd cheek ; 
Still lay my head by Teviot stone, 
Tho there, forgotten and alone, 
The Bard may draw his parting groan. 

Sir W. Scott. 



328 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 

The Maniac, 

Hither at times, with cheerfulness of soul, 

Sweet village-maids from neighboring hamlets stroll, 

That like the light-heel'd does our lawns that rove, 

Looks shyly curious; ripening into love; 

For love's their errand: hence the tints that glow 

On either cheek, a heighten'd lustre know: 

When, conscious of their charms, even age looks sly, 

And rapture beams from youth's observant eye. 

The pride of such a party, Nature's pride 
Was lovely Poll;* who innocently tried, 
With hat of airy shape, and ribbons gay, 
Love to inspire, and stand in hymen's way: 
But ere her twentieth summer could expand, 
Or youth was render'd happy with her hand, 
Her mind's serenity, her peace was gone, 
Her eye grew languid, and she wept alone: 
Yet causeless seem'd her grief; for quick restrain'd, 
Mirth follow'd loud; or indignation reign'd: 
W T hims wild and simple led her from her home, 
The heath, the common, or the fields, to roam : 
Terror and joy, alternate rul'd her hours ; 
Now blythe she sung, and gather'd useless flowers; 
Now pluck'd a tender twig from every bough, 
To whip the hovering demons from her brow. 
Ill-fated maid ! thy guiding spark is fled, 
And lasting wretchedness awaits thy bed, — 
Thy bed of straw ! for mark, where even now 
O'er their lost child afflicted parents bow; 
Their wo she knows not, but perversely coy, 
Inverted customs yield her sullen joy; 
Her midnight meals in secrecy she takes, 
Low muttering to the moon, that rising breaks 
Thro' night's dark gloom: — Oh how much more forlorn 
Her night, that knows of no returning morn! — 
Slow from the threshold, once her infant seat, 
O'er the cold earth she crawls to her retreat; 

* The author has since conversed with this unfortunate woman, and 
finds that her name is not Mary, but Ann Rayner, of Ixworth Thorp : 
she is very much recovered, and appears to have a true sense of her past 
calamity. 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 329 

Quitting the cot's warm walls unhous'd to lie, 

Or share the swine's impure and narrow sty; 

The damp night-air her shivering limbs assails; 

In dreams she moans, and fancied wrongs bewails. 

When morning wakes, none earlier rous'd than she, 

When pendent drops fall glittering from the tree; 

But nought her rayless melancholy cheers, 

Or soothes her breast, or stops her streaming tears. 

Her matted locks, unornamented flow; 

Clasping her knees, and waving to and fro ; — 

Her head bow'd down, her faded cheek to hide ; — 

A piteous mourner by the pathway side. 

Some tufted molehill, through the livelong day, 

She calls her throne ; there weeps her life away ; 

And oft the gaily-passing stranger stays 

His well-tim'd step, and takes a silent gaze, 

Till sympathetic drops unbidden start, 

And pangs quick-springing muster round his heart ; 

And soft he treads with other gazers round, 

And fain would catch her sorrow's plaintive sound: 

One word alone is all that strikes the ear, 

One short, pathetic, simple word, — u Oh dear!" 

A thousand times repeated to the wind, 

That wafts the sigh but leaves the pang behind! 

For ever of the profferd parley shy, 

She hears the .unwelcome foot advancing nigh; 

Nor quite unconscious of her wretched plight, 

Gives one sad look, and hurries out of sight ! — 

Fair promis'd sunbeams of terrestrial bliss, 
Health's gallant hopes, — and are ye sunk to this? 
For in life's road, tho thorns abundant grow, 
There still are joys poor Poll can never know; 
Joys which the gay companions of her prime 
Sip, as they drift along the stream of time; 
At eve to hear beside their tranquil home 
The lifted latch, that speaks the lover come: 
That love matur'd, next playful on the knee 
To press the velvet lip of infancy; 
To stay the tottering step, the features trace; — 
Inestimable sweets of social peace ! * 

O Thou, who bidst the venial juices rise ! 
Thou, on whose blasts, autumnal foliage flies! 



330 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 

Let peace ne'er leave me, nor my heart grow cold, 
Whilst life and sanity are mine to hold. 



Bhomfield. 



Address to the Ocean. 



thou vast ocean! ever sounding sea! 
Thou symbol of a drear immensity ! 

Thou thing that windest round the solid world 
Like a huge animal, which, downward hurl'd 
From the black clouds, lies weltering and alone, 
Lashing and writhing till its strength be gone. 
Thy voice is like the thunder, and thy sleep 
Is as a giant's slumber, loud and deep. 
Thou speakest in the East and in the West 
At once, and on thy heavily laden breast 
Fleets come and go, and shapes that have no life 
Or motion, yet are mov'd and meet in strife. 
The earth hath nought of this : no chance or change 
Ruffles its surface, and no spirits dare 
Give answer to the tempest- waken air; 
But o'er its wastes the weakly tenants range 
At will, and wound its bosom as they go: 
Ever the same, it hath no ebb, no flow; 
But in their stated rounds the seasons come, 
And pass like visions to their wonted home, 
And come again, and vanish : the young Spring 
Looks ever bright with leaves and blossoming, 
And Winter always winds his sullen hom, 
When the wild Autumn, with a look forlorn, 
Dies in his stormy manhood; and the skies 
Weep, and flowers sicken when the Summer flies. 
Oh! wonderful thou art, great element: 
And fearful in thy spleeny humors bent, 
And lovely in repose ; thy summer form 
Is beautiful, and when thy silver waves 
Make music in earth's dark and winding caves, 

1 love to wander on thy pebbled beach, 
Marking the sun-light at the evening hour, 
And hearken to the thoughts thy waters teach — 

6 Eternity— Eternity — and Power.' Procter. 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 331 



On the Downfal of Poland. 

O sacred Truth! thy triumph ceas'd awhile, 
And Hope, thy sister, ceas'd with thee to smile, 
When leagu'd Oppression pour'd to Northern wars 
Her whisker' d pandoors and her fierce hussars, 
Wav'd her dread standard to the breeze of morn, 
Peai'd her loud drum, and twang' d her trumpet-horn ; 
Tumultuous horror brooded o'er her van, 
Presaging wrath to Poland — and to man! 

Warsaw's last champion, from her height survey 'd, 
Wide o'er the fields, a waste of ruin laid, — 
" O Heaven!" he cried, " my bleeding country save!-— 
Is there no hand on high to shield the brave ? 
Yet, tho destruction sweep those lovely plains, 
Rise fellow men! our country yet remains! 
By that dread name, we wave the sword on high ! 
And swear for her to live! — with her to die!" 

He said, and on the rampart-heights array'd 
His trusty warriors, few, but undismay'd; 
Firm-pac'd and slow, a horrid front they form, 
Still as the breeze, but dreadful as the storm! 
Low, murmuring sounds along their banners fly, 
Revenge, or death! — the watchword and reply; 
Then peai'd the notes, omnipotent to charm, 
And the loud tocsin toll'd their last alarm ! — 

In vain — alas! in vain, ye gallant few! 
From rank to rank your volley'd thunder flew: — 
Oh! bloodiest picture in the book of time, 
Sarmatia fell, unwept, without a crime! 
Found not a generous friend, a pitying fo, 
Strength in her arms, nor mercy in her wo ! 
Dropp'd from her nerveless grasp the shatter d spear, 
Clos'd her bright eye, and curb'd her high career; — 
Hope, for a season, bade the world farewell, 
And Freedom shriek'd — as Kosciusko fell! 

The sun went down, nor ceas'd the carnage there; 
Tumultuous murder shook the midnight air — 
On Prague's proud arch the fires of ruin glow, 
His blood-dy'd waters murmuring far below. 



332 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 

The storm prevails ! the rampart yields away — 
Bursts the wild cry of horror and dismay ! 
Hark! as the mouldering piles with thunder fall, 
A thousand shrieks for hopeless mercy call ! 
Earth shook! — red meteors flash'd along the sky! 
And conscious nature shudder'd at the cry! 

O righteous Heaven! ere Freedom found a grave, 
Why slept the sword, omnipotent to save? 
Where was thine arm, O Vengeance ! where thy rod, 
That smote the foes of Zion and of God ? 
That crush'd proud Ammon, when his iron car 
Was yok'd in wrath, and thunder'd from afar? 
Where was the storm that slumber'd till the host 
Of blood-stain'd Pharaoh left their trembling coast; 
Then hade the deep in wild commotion flow, 
And heav'd an ocean on their march below? 

Departed spirits of the mighty dead! — 
Ye that at Marathon and Leuctra bled! 
Friends of the world ! restore your swords to man, 
Fight in his sacred cause, and lead the van! 
Yet for Sarmatia's tears of blood atone, 
And make her arm puissant as your own! 
Oh ! once again to Freedom's cause return 
The patriot Tell — the Bruce of Bannockburn ! 

Campbell. 



0?i the Dissolutio7i of Nature. — Hymn from the Fall of 

Jerusalem. 
Even thus amid thy pride and luxury, 
O Earth! shall that last coming burst on thee, 

That secret coming of the Son of Man, 
When all the cherub-throning clouds shall shine 
Irradiate with his bright advancing sign: 

When that Great Husbandman shall wave his fan, 
Sweeping, like chaff, thy wealth and pomp away: 
Still at the noontide of that nightless day, 

Shalt thou thy wonted dissolute course maintain. 
Along the busy mart and crowded street, 
The buyer and the seller still shall meet, 

And marriage-feasts begin their jocund strain : 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 333 

Still to the pouring out the cup of wo ; 
Till Earth, a drunkard, reeling to and fro, 
And mountains molten by his burning feet, 
And Heaven his presence own, all red with furnace-heat. 
The hundred-gated cities then, 
The Towers and Temples, nam'd of men 
Eternal, and the Thrones of kings ; 
The gilded summer Palaces, 
The courtly bowers of love and ease, 

Where still the Bird of pleasure sings; 
Ask ye the destiny of them? 
Go gaze on fallen Jerusalem! 
Yea, mightier names are in the fatal roll, 

'Gainst Earth and Heaven God's standard is unfurl'd, 
The skies are shrivell'd like a burning scroll, 

And the vast common doom ensepulchres the world! — 
Oh! who shall then survive? 
Oh! who shall stand and live? 
When all that hath been, is no more: 
When for the round earth hung in air, 
With all the constellations fair 
In the sky's azure canopy; 
When for the breathing Earth and sparkling Sea, 

Is but a fiery deluge without shore, 
Heaving along the abyss profound and dark, 
A fiery deluge, and without an Ark. 

Lord of all power ! when thou art there alone 
On thy eternal fiery-wheeled throne, 
That in its high meridian noon 
Needs not the perish'd sun nor moon: 
When thou art there in thy presiding state, 

Wide-sceptred Monarch o'er the realm of doom : 
When from the sea-depths, from earth's darkest womb, 
The dead of all the ages round thee wait: 
And when the tribes of wickedness are strown 
Like forest leaves in the autumn of thine ire: 
Faithful and True! thou still wilt save thine own! 

The Saints shall dwell within the unharming fire, 
Each white robe spotless, blooming every palm. 
Even safe as we, by this still fountain's side, 
So shall the church, thy bright and mystic Bride-, 
Sit on the stormy gulf, a halcyon oird of calm. 



334 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 

Yes, mid yon angry and destroying signs, 
O'er us the rainbow of thy mercy shines, 
We hail, we bless the covenant of its beam, 
Almighty to avenge, Almightiest to redeem. Milman, 



Enumeration of Sweets. 

'Tis sweet to hear, 
At midnight on the blue and moonlit deep, 
The song and oar of Adria's gondolier, 
By distance mellow'd, o'er the waters sweep; 
'Tis sweet to see the evening star appear; 
'Tis sweet to listen as the night- winds creep 
From leaf to leaf; 'tis sweet to view on high 
The rain-bow, bas'd on ocean, span the sky. 

'Tis sweet to hear the watch-dog's honest bark 
Bay deep-mouth'd welcome as we draw near home; 
'Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark 
Our coming, and look brighter when we come; 
'Tis sweet to be awaken'd by the lark, 
Or lulld by falling waters; sweet the hum 
Of bees, the voice of girls, the song of birds, 
The lisp of children, and their earliest words. 

Sweet is the vintage, when the showering grapes 
In Bacchanal profusion reel to earth 
Purple and gushing: sweet are our escapes 
From civic revelry to rural mirth; 
Sweet to the miser are his glittering heaps; 
Sweet to the father is his first-born's birth; 
Sweet is revenge — especially to women, 
Pillage to soldiers, prize-money to seamen. 

Sweet is a legacy, and passing sweet 

The unexpected death of some old lady 

Or gentleman of seventy years complete, 

Who've made " us youth" wait too — too long already 

For an estate, or cash, or country-seat, 

Still breaking, but with stamina so steady, 

That all the Israelites are fit to mob its 

Next owner for their double-lost post-obits. 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 335 

'lis sweet to win, no matter how, one's laurels, 

By blood or ink; 'tis sweet to put an end 

To strife; 'tis sometimes sweet to have our quarrels, 

Particularly with a tiresome friend; 

Sweet is old wine in bottles, ale in ban-els; 

Dear is the helpless creature we defend 

Against the world; and dear the school-boy spot 

We ne'er forget, though there we are forgot. 

But sweeter still than this, than these, than all, 

Is first and passionate love — it stands alone, 

Like Adam's recollection of his fall; 

The tree of knowledge has been pluck'd — all's known — 

And life yields nothing farther to recall 

Worthy of this ambrosial sin, so shown, 

No doubt in fable, as the unforgiven 

Fire, which Prometheus filch'd for us from heaven. 

Byron. 

The Battle of Hohenlinden. 

On Linden, when the sun was low, 
All bloodless lay the untrodden snow, 
And dark as winter was the flow 
Of Iser rolling rapidly ; 

But Linden saw another sight, 
When the drum beat, at dead of night, 
Commanding fires of death to light 
The darkness of her scenery ! 

By torch and trumpet fast array 'd, 
Each horseman drew his battle-blade, 
And furious eveiy charger neigh'd, 
To join the dreadful revelry; 

Then shook the hills with thunder riven! 
Then rush'd the steed to battle driven! 
And louder than the bolts of heaven, 
Far flash' d the red artillery! 

But redder yet those fires shall glow 
On Linden's hills of stained snow; 
And bloodier yet the torrent flow 
Of Iser rolling rapidly ! 



336 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 

Tis morn — but scarce yon level sun 
Can pierce the war-cloud rolling dun, 
Where furious Frank and fiery Hun 
Shout in their sulphurous canopy! 

The combat deepens — On, ye brave, 
Who rush to glory or the grave! 
Wave, Munich, all thy banners wave, 
And charge with all thy chivalry! 

Few, few shall part where many meet ! 
The snow shall be their winding-sheet; 
And every turf beneath their feet 

Shall be a soldier s sepulchre ! Campbell. 



The Storm. 



Again the weather threaten'd, again blew 
A gale, and in the fore and after hold 
Water appear'd; yet, tho the people knew 
All this, the most were patient, and some bold, 
Until the chains and leathers were worn through 
Of all our pumps : — a wreck complete she roll'd, 
At mercy of the waves, whose mercies are 
Like human beiags during civil war. 

Then came the carpenter, at last, with tears 
In his rough eyes, and told the captain, he 
Could do no more; he was a man in years, 
And long had voyag'd through many a stormy sea. 
And if he wept at length, they were not fears 
That made his eye-lids as a woman s be, 
But he, poor fellow, had a wife and children, 
Two things for dying people quite bewildering. 

'Twas twilight, for the sunless day went down 
Over the waste of waters, like a veil, 
Which, if withdrawn, would but disclose the frown 
Of one who hates us, so the night was shown, 
And grimly darkled o'er their faces pale, 
And hopeless eyes, which o'er the deep alone 
Gaz'd dim and desolate; twelve days had fear 
Been their familiar, and now death was here. 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 337 

At half-past eight o'clock, booms, hencoops, spars, 

And all things, for a chance had been cast loose, 

That still could keep afloat the struggling tars, 

For yet they strove, although of no great use: 

There was no light in heaven but a few stars ; 

The boats put off o'ercrowded with their crews; — 

She gave a heel, and then a lurch to port, 

And, going down head foremost — sunk, in short. 

Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell, 

Then shriek'd the timid, and stood still the brave, 

Then some leap'd overboard with dreadful yell, 

As eager to anticipate their grave; 

And the sea yawn'd around her like a hell, 

And down she suck'd with her the whirling wave, 

Like one who grapples with his enemy, 

And strives to strangle him before he die. 

And first one universal shriek there rush'd, 

Louder than the loud ocean, like a crash 

Of echoing thunder; and then all was hush'd, 

Save the wild wind and the remorseless dash 

Of billows ; but at intervals there gush'd, 

Accompanied with a convulsive splash, 

A solitary shriek, the bubbling cry 

Of some strong swimmer in his agony. Byron. 



The Maid of the Inn. 
Who is she, the poor maniac ! whose wildly-fix'd eyes 

Seem a heart overcharged to express? — 
She weeps not, yet often and deeply she sighs; 
She never complains — but her silence — implies 

The composure of settled distress! 
No aid, no compassion, the maniac will seek, 

Cold and hunger awake not her care; 
Through the rags do the winds of the winter blow bleak 
On her poor wither'd bosom, half bare ; and her cheek 

Has the deadly pale hue of despair! 
Yet cheerful and happy — nor distant the day — 

Poor Mary the maniac has been: 
The traveler remembers, who journey'd this way, 
No damsel so lovely, no damsel so gay, 

As Mary, the Maid of the Inn! 

G G 



338 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 

Her cheerful address fill'd the guests with delight. 

As she welcom'd them in with a smile; 
Her heart was a stranger to childish affright, 
And Mary would walk by the Abbey at night, 

When the wind whistled down the dark aisle. 
She lov'd ; and young Richard had settled the day, 

And she hop'd to be happy for life — 
But Richard was idle and worthless; and they 
Who knew him would pity poor Mary, and say, 

That she was too good for his wife. 

Twas in Autumn, and stormy and dark was the night, 

And fast were the windows and door; 
Two guests sat enjoying the fire that burn'd bright, 
And smoking in silence, with tranquil delight, 

They listen'd to hear the wind roar. 

" 'Tis pleasant," cried one, " seated by the fire-side, 

To hear the wind whistle without." 
" A fine night for the Abbey!" his comrade replied: 
" Methinks a man's courage would now be well tried, 

Who should wander the ruins about. 

" I myself, like a school-boy, should tremble to hear 

The hoarse ivy shake o'er my head; 
And could fancy I saw, half persuaded by fear, 
Some ugly old abbot's white spirit appear, 

For this wind might awaken the dead." 

" I'll wager a dinner," the other one cried, 
" That Mary would venture there now:" 
" Then wager, and lose," with a sneer he replied, 
I'll warrant she'd fancy a ghost by her side, 
And faint if she saw a white cow!" 

" Will Mary this charge on her courage allow?" 

His companion exclaim'd with a smile; 
" I shall win, for I know she will venture there now, 
And earn a new bonnet, by bringing a bough 

From the alder that grows in the aisle." 

With fearless good humor did Mary comply, 

And the way to the Abbey she bent — 
The night it was gloomy, the wind it was high, 
And, as hollowly howling it swept through the sky, 

She shiver'd — with cold as she went. 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 339 

O'er the path, so well known, still proceeded the maid, 

Where the Abbey rose dim on the sight; 
Through the gateway she enter'd — she felt not afraid — 
Yet the ruins were lonely and wild, and their shade 
Seem'd to deepen the gloom of the night. 

All around her was silent, save when the rude blast 

Howl'd dismally round the old pile ; 
Over weed-cover d fragments still fearless she pass'd, 
And arriv'd at the innermost ruin at last, 

Where the alder-tree grew in the aisle. 

Well pleas'd did she reach it, and quickly drew near, 

And hastily gather'd the bough — 
When the sound of a voice seem'd to rise on her ear — 
She paus'd, and she listend, all eager to hear, 

And her heart panted fearfully now! 

The wind blew, the hoarse ivy shook over her head; — 

She listend; — nought else could she hear. 
The wind ceas'd, her heart sunk in her bosom with dread, 
For she heard in the ruins — distinctly — the tread 
Of footsteps approaching her near. 

Behind a wide column, half breathless with fear, 

She crept, to conceal herself there ; 
That instant the moon o'er a dark cloud shone clear, 
And she saw in the moon-light two ruffians appear, 

And between them — a corpse did they bear! 

Then Mary could feel her heart-blood curdle cold! 

Again the rough wind hurried by — 
It blew off the hat of the one, and behold ! 
Even close to the feet of poor Mary it roll'd ! — 

She fell — and expected to die ! 

" Curse the hat!" — he exclaims — " Nay come on, and 
fast hide 

The dead body!" his comrade replies. 
She beheld them in safety pass on by her side, 
She seizes the hat, fear her courage supplied, 

And fast through the Abbey she flies ! 

She ran with wild speed, she rush'd in at the door, 

She gaz'd horribly eager around: 
Her limbs could support their faint burden no more; 
But, exhausted and breathless, she sunk on the floor, 

Unable to utter a sound. 



340 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 

Ere yet her pale lips could the story impart, 

For a moment the hat met her view — 
Her eyes from that object convulsively start, 
For, O heaven ! what cold horror thrill'd through her heart 

When the name of her Richard she knew! 

Where the old Abbey stands, on the common hard by, 

His gibbet is now to be seen; 
Not far from the inn it engages the eye, 
The traveler beholds it, and thinks, with a sigh, 

Of poor Mary, the Maid of the Inn ! Souther/. 



Hymn on Modern Greece. 
The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece ! 

Where burning Sappho lov'd and sung, 
Where grew the arts of war and peace, — 

Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung! 
Eternal summer gilds them yet, 
But all, except their sun, is set. 

The Scian and the Teian muse, 
The hero's harp, the lover's lute, 

Have found the fame your shores refuse; 
Their place of birth alone is mute 

To sounds which echo farther west 

Than your sires' " Islands of the Bless'd." 

The mountains look on Marathon — 
And Marathon looks on the sea; 

And musing there an hour alone, 

I dream'd that Greece might still be free; 

For standing on the Persin's grave, 

I could not deem myself a slave. 

A king sat on the rocky brow 

Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis; 

And ships, by thousands, lay below, 
And men in nations; — all were his! 

He counted them at break of day — 

And when the sun set, where were they? 

And where are they? and where art thou, 
My country? — On thy voiceless shore 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 341 

The heroic lay is tuneless now — 

The heroic bosom beats no more! 
And must thy lyre, so long divine, 
Degenerate into hands like mine? 

'Tis something, in the dearth of fame, 

Tho link'd among a fetter'd race, 
To feel at least a patriot's shame, 

Even as I sing, suffuse my face; 
For what is left the poet here? — 
For Greeks a blush — for Greece' a tear. 

Must we but weep o'er days more bless'd? 

Must toe but blush ? — Our fathers bled. 
Earth ! render back from out thy breast 

A remnant of our Spartan dead ! 
Of the three hundred, grant but three 
To make a new Thermopylae ! 

What, silent still? and silent all? 

Ah! no; — the voices of the dead 
Sound like a distant torrent's fall, 

And answer, " Let one living head, 
But one arise, — we come, we come!" 
'Tis but the living who are dumb. 

In vain — in vain : strike other chords ; 

Fill high the cup with Samian wine ! 
Leave battles to the Turkish hordes, 

And shed the blood of Scio's vine! 
Hark! rising to the ignoble call — 
How answers each bold bacchanal! 

You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet, 

Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone? 
Of two such lessons, why forget 

The nobler and the manlier one? 
You have the letters Cadmus gave — 
Think ye he meant them for a slave? 

Fill high the bowl of Samian wine ! 

We will not think of themes like these ! 
It made Anacreon's song divine: 

He serv'd — but serv'd Polycrates — 
A tyrant; but our masters then 
Were still, at least, our countrymen. 



342 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 

The tyrant of the Chersonese 

Was freedom's best and bravest friend; 

That tyrant was Miltiades ! 

Oh! that the present hour would lend 

Another despot of the kind ! 

Such chains as his were sure to bind. 

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! 

On Suli's rock and Parga's shore, 
Exists the remnant of a line 

Such as the Doric mothers bore; 
And there, perhaps, some seed is sown, 
The Heracleidan blood might own. 

Trust not for freedom to the Franks — 
They have a king who buys and sells: 

In native swords, and native ranks, 
The only hope of courage dwells ; 

But Turkish force, and Latin fraud, 

Would break your shield, however broad. 

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine ! 

Our virgins dance beneath the shade — 
I see their glorious black eyes shine; 

But gazing on each glowing maid, 
My own the burning tear-drop laves, 
To think such breasts must suckle slaves. 

Place me on Sunium's marbled steep, 
Where nothing, save the waves and I, 

May hear our mutual murmurs sweep; 
There, swan- like, let me sing and die: 

A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine — 

Dash down the cup of Samian wine! Byron. 

Lord Ulliris Daughter. 
A Chieftain to the Highlands bound, 

Cries, " Boatman, do not tarry, 
And I'll give thee a silver pound, 

To row us o'er the ferry ! " — 

" Now who be ye, would cross Lochgyle, 

This dark and stormy water? " 
" O, I'm the chief of Ulva's isle, 

And this Lord Ullin's daughter: — 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 343 

" And fast before her father's men, 

Three days we've fled together; 
For should he find us in the glen, 

My blood would stain the heather — 
" His horsemen hard behind us ride — 

Should they our steps discover, 
Then — who would cheer my bonny bride, 

When they have slain her lover?" — 
Outspoke the hardy Highland wight, 

" I'll go, my chief — I'm ready: — 
It is not for your silver bright, 

But for your winsome lady! 
" And, by my word, the bonny bird 

In danger shall not tarry; 
So — though the waves are raging white — 

I'll row you o'er the ferry!" — 
By this the storm grew loud apace, 

The water- wraith was shrieking, 
And in the scowl of heaven, each face 

Grew dark as they were speaking. 
But still as wilder blew the wind, 

And as the night grew drearer, 
Adown the glen rode armed men! — 

Their trampling sounded nearer! — 
" Oh! haste thee, haste!" the lady cries, 

Though tempests round us gather, 
I'll meet the raging of the skies, 

But not an angry father." — 
The boat has left a stormy land, 

A stormy sea before her, — 
When — oh! too strong for human hand! — 

The tempest gather'd o'er her — 
And still they row'd amidst the roar 

Of waters fast prevailing: 
Lord Ullin reach'd that fatal shore 

His wrath was chang'd to wailing — 
For sore dismay'd, through storm and shade, 

His child he did discover! — 
One lovely arm she stretch' d for aid, 

And one was round her lover. 



344 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 

" Come back! come back!" he cried in grief, 

Across this stormy water: 
And 111 forgive your Highland chief, 

My daughter! — Oh! my daughter!" — 

'Twas vain! — the loud waves lash'd the shore, 

Return or aid preventing: — 
The waters wild went o'er his child — 

And he was left lamenting. Campbell. 



Fitz- James and Roderick Dhu. 

The Chief in silence strode before, 

And reach'd that torrent's sounding shore, 

Which, daughter of three mighty lakes, 

From Vennachar in silver breaks, 

Sweeps through the plain, and ceaseless mines 

On Bochastle the mouldering lines, 

Where Rome, the Empress of the World, 

Of yore her eagle wings unfurl'd. 

And here his course the Chieftain staid, 

Threw down his target and his plaid, 

And to the Lowland warrior said: — 

" Bold Saxon! to his promise just, 

Vich-Alpin has discharg'd his trust. 

This murderous Chief, this ruthless man, 

This head of a rebellious clan, 

Hath led thee safe, through watch and ward, 

Far past Clan- Alpine's outmost guard. 

Now, man to man, and steel to steel, 

A Chieftain's vengeance thou shalt feel. 

See, here, all vantageless I stand, 

Arm'd like thyself, with single brand ; 

For this is Coilantogle ford, 

And thou must keep thee with thy sword." 

The Saxon paus'd: — " I ne'er delay'd, 
When foeman bade me draw my blade ; 
Nay more, brave Chief, I vow'd thy death: 
Yet sure thy fair and generous faith, 
And my deep debt for life preserv'd, 
A better meed have well deserv'd: — 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 345 

Can nought but blood our feud atone? 

Are there no means?" — " No, Stranger, none! 

And hear, — to fire thy flagging zeal, — 

The Saxon cause rests on thy steel; 

For thus spoke Fate by prophet bred 

Between the living and the dead; 

" Who spills the foremost foeman's life, 

His party conquers in the strife. ,, 

" Then, by my word," the Saxon said, 

" The riddle is already read. 

Seek yonder brake beneath the cliff, — 

There lies Red Murdoch, stark and stiff. 

Thus Fate has solv'd her prophecy, 

Then yield to Fate, and not to me." 

Dark lightning flash'd from Roderick's eye — 

" Soars thy presumption then so high, 

Because a wretched kern ye slew, 

Homage to name to Roderick Dhu? 

He yields not, he, to man nor Fate! 

Thou add'st but fuel to my hate: — 

My clans-man's blood demands revenge. — 

Not yet prepar'd? — By heaven, I change 

My thought, and hold thy valor light 

As that of some vain carpet-knight, 

Who ill deserv'd my courteous care, 

And whose best boast is but to wear 

A braid of his fair lady's hair." 

— " I thank thee, Roderick, for the word! 

It nerves my heart, it steels my sword; 

For I have sworn this braid to stain 

In the best blood that warms thy vein. 

Now, truce, farewell! and ruth, begone! — 

Yet think not that by thee alone, 

Proud Chief! can courtesy be shown. 

Tho not from copse, or heath, or cairn, 

Start at my whistle clans-rnen stern, 

Of this small horn one feeble blast 

Would fearful odds against thee cast. 

But fear not — doubt not — which thou wilt — 

We try this quarrel hilt to hilt." — 

Then each at once his faulchion drew, 

Each on the ground his scabbard threw, 



346 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 

Each look'd to sun, and stream, and plain, 
As what they ne'er might see again; 
Then foot, and point, and eye oppos'd, 
In dubious strife they darkly clos'd. 

Ill far'd it then with Roderick Dhu, 
That on the field his targe he threw, 
Whose brazen studs and tough bull-hide 
Had death so often dash'd aside; 
For, train'd abroad his arms to wield, 
Fitz-Jarnes's blade was sword and shield. 
He practis'd every pass and ward, 
To thrust, to strike, to feint, to guard; 
While less expert, tho stronger far, 
The Gael maintain'd unequal war. 
Three times in closing strife they stood, 
And thrice the Saxon blade drank blood ; 
No stinted draught, no scanty tide, 
The gushing flood the tartans dyed. 
Fierce Roderick felt the fatal drain, 
And shower'd his blows like wintry rain; 
And, as firm rock, or castle roof, 
Against the winter shower is proof, 
The foe, invulnerable still, 
Foil'd his wild rage by steady skill; 
Till, at advantage ta'en, his brand 
Forc'd Roderick's weapon from his hand, 
And, backwards borne upon the lea, 
Brought the proud Chieftain to his knee. 

" Now, yield thee, or, by Him who made 
The world, thy heart's blood dyes my blade !" 
" Thy threats, thy mercy, I defy! 
Let recreant yield, who fears to die." — 
Like adder darting from his coil, 
Like wolf that dashes through the toil, 
Like mountain-cat who guards her young. 
Full at Fitz- James's throat he sprung; 
Receiv'd, but reck'd not of a wound, 
And lock'd his arms his foeman round. — 
Now, gallant Saxon, hold thine own! 
No maiden's hand is round thee thrown! 
That desperate grasp thy frame might feel, 
Through bars of brass and triple steel ! — 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 347 

They tug, they strain! — down, down, they go, 
The Gael above, Fitz-James below. 
The Chieftain's gripe his throat compress'd, 
His knee was planted in his breast ; 
His clotted locks he backward threw, 
Across his bnnv his hand he drew, 
From blood and mist to clear his sight, 
Then gleam'd aloft his dagger bright! — 
— But hate and fury ill supplied 
The stream of life's exhausted tide, 
And all too late the advantage came, 
To turn the odds of deadly game ; 
For, while the dagger gleam'd on high, 
Reel'd soul and sense, reel'd brain and eye. 
Down came the blow! but in the heath 
The erring blade found bloodless sheath. 
The struggling foe may now unclasp 
The fainting Chief's relaxing grasp; 
Unwounded from the dreadful close, 
But breathless all, Fitz-James arose. 



Modem Greece. 
Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle 
Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime? 
Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle 
Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime? 
Know ye the land of the cedar and vine, 
Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine; 
WTiere the light wings of Zephyr, oppress'd with perfume, 
Wax faint o'er the gardens of Gul in her bloom ; 
Where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit, 
And the voice of the nightingale never is mute; 
Where the tints of the earth, and the hues of the sky, 
In color tho varied, in beauty may vie, 
And the purple of Ocean is deepest in die ; 
Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twine, 
And all, save the spirit of man, is divine? 
'Tis the clime of the east, 'tis the land of the Sun — 
Can he smile on such deeds as his children have done ? 
Oh! wild as the accents of lovers' farewell, 
Are the hearts which they bear, and the tales which they 
tell. Byron. 



348 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 



Imitation of the Preceding Passage, as applied to 
Scotland. 
Know'st thou the land where the hardy green thistle, 
The red blooming heath and the harebell abound; 
Where oft o'er the mountains the shepherds thrill whistle 
Is heard in the gloaming so sweetly to sound? 
Know'st thou the land of the mountain and flood, 
Where the pine of the forest for ages have stood ; 
Where the eagle comes forth on the wings of the storm, 
And her young ones are rock'd on the high Cairngorm? 
Know'st thou the land where the old Celtic wave 
Encircles the hills which its blue waters lave ; 
Where the virgins are pure as the gems of the sea, 
And their spirits are light as their actions are free? 
'Tis the land of thy sire! — 'tis the land of thy youth, 
Where first thy young heart glow'd with honor and truth ; 
Where the wild fire of genius first caught thy young soul, 
And thy feet and thy fancy roam'd free from contrpl! 
Then why does that fancy still dwell on a clime 
Where Love leads to Madness, and Madness to Crime; 
WTiere courage itself is more savage than brave ; — 
Where man is a despot, and woman a slave? 
Tho soft are the breezes, and sweet the perfume, 
And fair are the " gardens of Gul" in their bloom; 
Can the odors they scatter — the roses they bear, 
Speak peace to the heart of suspicion and fear? 
Ah, no! 'tis the magic that glows in thy strain, 
Gives life to the action, and soul to the scene! 
And the deeds which they do, and the tales which they 

tell, 
Enchant us alone by the power of thy spell ! 
And is there no charm in thine own native earth? 
Does no talisman rest in the place of thy birth? 
Are the daughters of Albion less worthy thy care, 
Less soft than Zuleika — less bright than Gulnare? 
Are her sons less renown'd, or her warriors less brave, 
Than the slaves of a Prince — who himself is a slave? 
Then strike thy wild lyre — let it swell with the strain, 
Let the mighty in arms live, and conquer again ; 
Their past deeds of valor thy lays shall rehearse, 
And the fame of thy country revive in thy verse. 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 349 

The proud wreath of victory round heroes may twine, 
Tis the Poet who crowns them with honor divine! 
And thy laurels, Pelides, had sunk in the tomb, 
Had the Bard not preserv d them immortal in bloom ! 

Anon. 



+ r + * +ti * ++r++r*r> 



On Sleep. 
An infant when it gazes on a light, 
A child the moment when it drains the breast, 
A devotee when soars the Host in sight, 
An Arab with a stranger for a guest, 
A sailor when the prize has struck in fight, 
A miser filling his most hoarded chest, 
Feel rapture; but not such true joy are reaping 
As they who watch o'er what they love while sleeping. 
For there it lies so tranquil, so belovd, 
All that it hath of life with us is living; 
So gentle, stirless, helpless, and unmov'd, 
And all unconscious of the joy 'tis giving ; 
All that it hath felt, inflicted, pass'd, and prov'd, 
Hush'd into depths beyond the watcher's diving; 
There lies the thing we love with all its errors 
And all its charms, like death without its terrors. 

Byron. 

The Fate of Maegregor. 

" Maegregor, Maegregor, remember our foemen; 
The moon rises broad from the brow of Ben-Lomond ; 
The clans are impatient, and chide thy delay: 
Arise ! let us bound to Glen-Lyon away." 

Stern scowl'd the Maegregor, then silent and sullen, 
He turn'd his red eye to the braes of Strathfillan; 
" Go, Malcolm, to sleep, let the clans be dismiss'd; 
The Campbells this night for Maegregor must rest." 

" Maegregor, Maegregor, our scouts have been flying, 
Threfc days, round the hills of M'Nab and Glen-Lyon; 
Of riding and running such tidings they bear, 
We must meet them at home else they'll quickly be here." 

" The Campbell may come, as his promises bind him, 
And haughty M'Nab with his giants behind him; 

H H 



350 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 

This night I am bound to relinquish the fray, 

And do what it freezes my vitals to say. 

Forgive me, dear brother, this horror of mind ; 

Thou knowest in the strife I was never behind. 

Nor ever receded a foot from the van, 

Or blench'd at the ire or the prowess of man. 

But I've sworn by the cross, by my God, and by all ! 

An oath which I cannot, and dare not recall, — 

Ere the shadows of midnight fall east from the pile, 

To meet with a spirit this night in Glen-Gyle. 

" Last night, in my chamber, all thoughtful and lone, 
I call'd to remembrance some deeds I had done, 
When enter d a lady, with visage so wan, 
And looks, such as never were fasten'd on man. 
I knew her, O brother! I knew her full well! 
Of that once fair dame such a tale I could tell 
As would thrill thy bold heart; but how long she remain'd, 
So rack'd was my spirit, my bosom so pain'd, 
I knew not — but ages seem'd short to the while. 
Tho proffer the Highlands, nay, all the Green Isle, 
With length of existence no man can enjoy, 
The same to endure, the dread proffer I'd fly! 
The thrice-threaten'd pangs of last night to forego, 
Macgregor would dive to the mansions below. 
Despairing and mad, to futurity blind, " 
The present to shun, and some respite to find, 
I swore, ere the shadow fell east from the pile, 
To meet her alone by the brook of Glen- Gyle. 

" She told me, and turn'd my chill'd heart to a stone, 
The glory and name of Macgregor was gone : 
That the pine, which for ages had shed a bright halo, 
Afar on the mountains of Highland Glen-Falo, 
Should wither and fall ere the turn of yon moon, 
Smit through by the canker of hated Colquhoun: 
That a feast on Macgregors each day should be common, 
For years, to the eagles of Lennox and Lomond. 

" A parting embrace, in one moment, she gave: 
Her breath was a furnace, her bosom the grave ! 
Then flitting elusive, she said, with a frown, 
" The mighty Macgregor shall yet be my own!" 



EXTRACTS IN RHYiME. 351 

" Macgregor, thy fancies are wild as the wind ; 
The dreams of the night have disorder'd thy mind. 
Come, buckle thy panoply — march to the field, — 
See, brother, how hack'd are thy helmet and shield ! 
Ay, that was M'Nab, in the height of his pride, 
When the lions of Dochart stood firm by his side. 
This night the proud chief his presumption shall rue ; 
Rise, brother, these chinks in his heart-blood will glue : 
Thy fantasies frightful shall flit on the wing, 
When loud with thy bugle Glen-Lyon shall ring." 

Like glimpse of the moon through the storm of the 
night, 
Macgregor's red eye shed one sparkle of fight: 
It faded — it darken'd — he skudder'd — he sigh'd, — 

" No ! not for the universe I" low he replied. 

Away went Macgregor, but went not alone ; 
To watch the dread rendezvous, Malcolm has gone. 
They oar'd the broad Lomond, so still and serene! 
And deep in her bosom, how awful the scene ! 
O'er mountains inverted the blue waters curl'd, 
And rock'd them on skies of a far nether world. 

All silent they went, for the time was approaching; 
The moon the blue zenith already was touching; 
No foot was abroad on the forest or hill, 
No sound but the lullaby sung by the rill; 
Young Malcolm at distance, couch'd, trembling the while, — 
Macgregor stood lone by the brook of Glen-Gyle. 

Few minutes had pass'd, ere they spied on the stream, 
A skiff sailing light, where a lady did seem; 
Her sail was the web of the gossamer's loom, 
The glow-worm her wakelight, the rainbow her boom ; 
A dim rayless beam was her prow and her mast, 
Like wold-fire, at midnight, that glares on the waste. 
Tho rough was the river with rock and cascade, 
No torrent, no rock, her velocity staid; 
She wimpled the water to weather and lee, 
And heav'd as if borne on the waves of the sea. 
Mute Nature was rous'd in the bounds of the glen; 
The wild deer of Gairtney abandon'd his den, 
Fled panting away, over river and isle, 
Nor once turn'd his eye to the brook of Glen-Gyle. 



352 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 

The fox fled in terror, the eagle awoke, 
As slumbering he dWd in the shelf of the rock; 
Astonish'd, to hide in the moon-beam he flew, 
And screw'd the night-heaven till lost in the blue. 

Young Malcolm beheld the pale lady approach, 
The chieftain salute her, and shrink from her touch. 
He saw the Macgregor kneel down on the plain, 
As begging for something he could not obtain; 
She rais'd him indignant, derided his stay, 
Then bore him on board, set her sail, and away. 

Tho fast the red bark down the river did glide, 
Yet faster ran Malcolm adown by its side; 
" Macgregor! Macgregor!" he bitterly cried; 
" Macgregor! Macgregor !" the echoes replied. 
He struck at the lady, but, strange tho it seem, 
His sword only fell on the rocks and the stream ; 
But the groans from the boat, that ascended amain, 
Were groans from a bosom in horror and pain. — 
They reach'd the dark lake, and bore lightly away; 
Macgregor is vanish'd for ever and aye ! Hogg* 



The Battle ofMorgarten. 

The wine-month* shone in its golden prime, 

And the red grapes clustering hung, 
But a deeper sound, through the Switzer's clime, 
Than the vintage-music rung — 
A sound through vaulted cave, 
A sound through echoing glen, 
Like the hollow swell of a rushing wave ; 
'Twas the tread of steel-girt men! 

And a trumpet, pealing wild and far, 

'Midst the ancient rocks was blown, 
Till the Alps replied to that voice of war, 
With a thousand of their own. 
And through the forest glooms, 
Flash'd helmets to the day, 
And the winds were tossing knightly plumes, 
Like pine-boughs in their play. 

* Wine-month—the German name for October. 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 353 

In Hasli's wilds there was gleaming steel, 

As the host of the Austrian pass'd ; 
And the Shreckhorn's rocks, with a savage peal, 
Made mirth at his clarion's blast. 
Up midst the Righi snows, 
The stormy march was heard, 
With the charger's tramp, whence fire-sparks rose, 
And the leader's gathering word. 

But a band, the noblest band of all, 

Through the rude Morgarten strait, 

With blazon'd streamers, and lances tall, 

Mov'd onwards in princely state. 

They came, with heavy chains, 

For the race despis'd so long — 

But amidst his Alp domains, 

The herdsman's arm is strong ! 

The sun was reddening the clouds of morn 

When they enter'd the rock defile, 
And shrill as a joyous hunter's horn 
Their bugles rung the while. — 
But on the misty height, 
Where the mountain people stood, 
There was stillness as of night, 

Wlien storms at distance brood: 

There was stillness, as of deep dead night, 

And a pause — but not of fear, 
While the Switzers gaz'd on the gathering might 
Of the hostile shield and spear. 
On wound those columns bright, 
Between the lake and wood, 
But they look'd not to the misty height. 
Where the mountain people stood. 

The pass was fill'd with their serried power, 

All helm'd and mail-array' d, 
And their steps had sounds like a thunder shower 
In the rustling forest shade. 

There w r ere prince and crested knight 
Hemm'd in by cliff and flood, 
When a shout arose from the misty height 
Where the mountain people stood. 



354 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 

And the mighty rocks came bounding down 

Their startled foes among, 
With a joyous whirl from the summit thrown — 
Oh! the herdsman's arm is strong! 
They came like Lanwine* hurl'd, 
From Alp to Alp in play, 
When the echoes shout through the snowy world, 
And the pines are borne away. 

The larch-woods crash'd on the mountain side, 

And the Switzers rush'd from high 
With a sudden charge on the flower and pride 
Of the Austrian chivalry: 
Like hunters of the deer, 
They storm'd the narrow dell, 
And first in the shock, with Uri's spear, 
Was the arm of William Tell! f 

There was tumult in the crowded strait, 

And a cry of wild dismay, 
And many a warrior met his fate 
From a peasant's hand that day! 
And the Empire's banners there, 
From its place of waving free, 
Went down before the shepherd men, 
The men of the Forest Sea. J 

With their pikes and massy clubs, they brake 

The cuirass and the shield, 
And the war-horse dash'd to the reddening lake, 
From the reapers of the field. 
The field — but not of sheaves — 
Proud crests and pennons lay, 
Strewn o'er it thick as the beech-wood leaves, 
In the autumn tempest's way. 

Oh! the sun in heaven fierce havock view'd 

When the Austrian turn'd to fly, 
And the brave, in the trampling multitude, 

Had a fearful death to die! 



* Lanwine — the Swiss name for the Avalanche, 
f William Tell's name is particularly mentioned amongst the con- 
federates at Morgarten. 
t Forest Sea — the Lake of the Four Cantons. 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 355 

And the leader of the war 
At eve unhelm'd was seen, 
With a hurrying step on the wilds afar, 
And a pale and troubled mien. 

But the sons of the land which the freeman tills. 

Went back from the battle-toil, 
To their cabin-home, midst the deep green hills, 
All burden'd with royal spoil. 
There were songs and festal fires, 
On the soaring Alps that night, 
When children sprung to greet their sires 

From the wild Morgarten fight. Edin. Mag, 



IW/W K WVy^WW ^ W W WW 



The Lyre. 

Where the roving rill meander'd 
Down the green, retiring vale, 
Poor, forlorn Alcseus wander'd, 

Pale with thought, serenely pale : 
Timeless sorrow o'er his face 
Breath'd a melancholy grace, 
And fix'd on every feature there 
The mournful resignation of despair. 

O'er his arm, his Lyre neglected, 

Once his dear companion, hung, 
And, in spirit deep dejected, 

Thus the pensive poet sung; 
While at midnight's solemn noon, 
Sweetly shone the cloudless moon, 
And all the stars, around his head, 
Benignly bright, their mildest influence shed. 

"Lyre! O Lyre! my chosen treasure, 

Solace of my bleeding heart! 
Lyre ! O Lyre ! my only pleasure, 

We must ever, ever part : 
For in vain thy poet sings, 
Woos in vain thy heavenly stiings; 
The muse's wretched sons are born 
To cold neglect; and penury, and scorn. 



356 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 



" That which Alexander sigh'd for, 
That which Czesar's soul possess'd, 
That which heroes, kings have died for, 

Glory! animates my breast. 
Hark! the charging trumpets' throats 
Pour their death-defying notes : 
' To arms!' they call: to arms I fly, 
Like Wolfe to conquer, and like Wolfe to die ! 

" Soft! the blood of murder d legions 
Summons vengeance from the skies; 

Flaming towns, and ravag'd regions, 
All in awful judgment rise ! 

then, innocently brave, 

1 will wrestle with the wave ; 

Lo! Commerce spreads the daring sail, 
And yokes her naval chariots to the gale. 

" Blow, ye breezes ! — gently blowing, 

Waft me to that happy shore, 
Where, from fountains ever flowing, 

Indian realms their treasures pour; 
Thence returning, poor in health, 
Rich in honesty and wealth, 
O'er thee, my dear paternal soil, 
I'll strew the golden harvest of my toil. 

" Then shall Misery's sons and daughters 

In their lonely dwellings sing: 
Bounteous as the Nile's dark waters, 

Undiscover'd as their spring, 
I will scatter o'er the land, 
Blessings with a sacred hand: 
For such angelic tasks design'd, 
I give the Lyre and sorrow to the wind." 

On an oak, whose branches hoary, 
Sigh'd to every passing breeze, 
Sigh'd, and told the simple story 

Of the patriarch of trees ; 
High in air his harp he hung, 
Now no more to rapture strung; 
Then warm in hope, no longer pale, 
He blush'd adieu, and rambled down the dale. 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 357 

Lightly touch'd by fairy fingers, 

Hark! — the Lyre enchants the wind; 
Fond Alcseus listens, lingers, 

Lingering, listening, looks behind. 
Now the music mounts on high, 
Sweetly swelling through the sky; 
To every tune, with tender heat, 
His heart-strings vibrate, and his pulses beat. 

Now the strains to silence stealing, 

Soft in ecstasies expire; 
Oh ! with what romantic feeling 
Poor Alcseus grasps the Lyre ! 
Lo ! his furious hand he flings 
In a tempest o'er the strings ; 
He strikes the chords so quick, so loud, 
Tis Jove that scatters lightning from a cloud ! 

" Lyre! O Lyre! my chosen treasure, 

Solace of my bleeding heart ; 
Lyre ! O Lyre ! my only pleasure, 

We will never, never part! — 

Glory, Commerce, now in vain 

Tempt me to the field, the main; 

The Muses' sons are bless'd, tho born 

To cold neglect, and penury, and scorn. 

" What, tho all the world neglect me, 

Shall my haughty soul repine? 
And shall poverty deject me, 

While this hallow'd Lyre is mine ? 
Heaven — that o'er my helpless head 
Many a wrathful vial shed, — 
Heaven gave this Lyre ! — and thus decreed, 
Be thou a bruised, but not a broken reed!" 

Montgomery. 



«rA>^wwwvs»«v^Vjrr*wiwvvw<w^^ 



Summer Hymn. 

God of my sires ! yon arch of blue — 
The balmy breeze — that verdant hue ; 
And this warm glow of summer's prime 
Transport me o'er the bounds of Time. 



358 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 

To Fancy's gaze new worlds arise 
And people yonder orient sides: 
The boundless realms of 'erial space 
Have many a bright and beauteous place 
That earth-born eye may never see; 
That earth-born thought, howe'er so free, 
Can image not, nor shadow out, 
Even with the misty trace of doubt. 
Yet there, O God! like oceans sand 
Strew'd on the shelving surf-beat strand, 
Innumerous hosts — a countless throng, 
Spontaneous swell the choral song 
Of endless praise ; for there, as here, 
All that asks worship, love, or fear; 
All, all above, around, below, 
To thee First Cause, their being owe: 
Thy fiat gave them instant birth; 
Thou, thou from chaos call'd them forth. 
Vast, awful, measureless, immense 
Thy power and thine omnipotence ! 
But oh! thy gentle Love, 
Softly streaming from above; 
Warm as the solar beam of day, 
Yet calm and sweet as Hesper's ray. 
As far — to space's utmost ends, 
In one glad reign of bliss extends ! 
Before thy strength, — before thy power 
Tis felt; — Oh! even in childhood's hour, 
Or e'er the mind hath garner d thought, 
Instinct to worship that hath taught! 
'Tis that which gave yon gushing stream; 
'Tis that which gave this gladdening beam; 
This flowery mead — yon spreading lawn; 
The healthful breeze of early dawn; 
The yellow broom; — yon heather-bell; 
The primrose blushing in yon dell; 
The pearly dew, that crowns each stem, 
Each flower, each leaf, with many a gem, 
Fairer than decks a diadem. 

And, nor the last nor least, with praise 
And swelling heart, in artless lays, 
Giv'st me to kneel before thy throne 
Here, in this temple of thine own: 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 359 

Its roof, yon arch of azure hue, 
A clear, calm, holy, cloudless blue; 
Its altar, yon steep hills that rise 
In misty grandeur to the skies; 
Its incense, that one fleecy cloud, 
Stainless as infant beauty's shroud; 
Its matin hymn, that swelling note 
That warbles through the lark's clear throat. 
This humble love, yet strong — sincere; 
This pensive joy; this happy tear; 
Its worship all. — Its priest, the thought 
With prostrate adoration fraught, 
That Thou art all in all!— that Man, what is he? — 
Nought! Anon. 

Lochinvar. 
Oh, young Lochinvar is come out of the west ! 
Through all the wide border his steed was the best; 
And save his good broad-sword he weapon had none, 
He rode all unarm'd, and he rode all alone! 
So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war, 
There never was knight like the young Lochinvar! 

He staid not for brake, and he stopp'd not for stone, 

He swam the Eske river where ford there was none — 

But, ere he alighted at Netherby gate, 

The bride had consented, the gallant came late: 

For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war, 

Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar! 

So boldly he enter'd the Netherby Hall, 
'Mong bride's men, and kinsmen, and brothers, and all ! — . 
Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword — 
For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word — 
" O come ye in peace here, or come ye in war? — 
Or to dance at our bridal? young Lord Lochinvar!" 

" I long woo'd your daughter, my suit you denied : 
Love swells like the Soiway, but ebbs like its tide! 
And now am I come, with this lost love of mine, 
To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine ! 
There be maidens in Scotland, more lovely by far, 
That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar!" 



360 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 

The bride kiss'd the goblet; the knight took it up, 
He quaff'd off the wine, and he threw down the cup! 
She look'd down to blush, and she look'd up to sigh,— 
With a smile on her lips, and a tear in her eye. 
He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar, — 
" Now tread we a measure !" said young Lochinvar. 

So stately his form, and so lovely her face, 

That never a hall such a galliard did grace ! 

While her mother did fret, and her father did fume, 

And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume, 

And the bride-maidens whisper'd " 'Twere better by far 

To have match' d our fair cousin with young Lochinvar!" 

One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear, 

When they reach'd the hall-door, and the charger stood 

near, 
So light to the croupe the fair lady he swung, 
So light to the saddle before her he spiling! 
" She is won! we are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur; 
They'll have fleet steeds that follow!" quoth young 

Lochinvar. 

There was mounting mong Graemes of the Netherby clan; 

Fosters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they ran; 

There was racing, and chasing, on Cannobie Lea, 

But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they see ! 

So daring in love, and so dauntless in war, 

Have ye e'er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar! 

Scott. 



The Field of Waterloo. 

Stop ! — for thy tread is on an Empire's dust ! 
An Earthquake's spoil is sepulchred below! 
Is the spot mark'd with no colossal bust? 
Nor column trophied for triumphal show? 
None; but the moral's truth tells simpler so. 
As the ground was before, thus let it be. — 
How that red rain — hath made the harvest grow! 
And is this all the world has gain'd by thee, 
Thou first and last of fields! king-making Victory? 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 361 

There was a sound of revelry by night, 
And Belgium's capital had gather'd then 
Her Beauty and her Chivalry; and bright 
The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men; 
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when 
Music arose with its voluptuous swell, 
Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again, 
And all went merry as a marriage-bell; — 
But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell! 

Did ye not hear it? — No; 'twas but the wind, 
Or the car rattling o'er the stony street ; 
On with the dance! let joy be unconfin'd; 
No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet 
To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet — 
But hark!— that heavy sound breaks in once more, 
As if the clouds its echo would repeat; 
And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before ! 
Arm! Arm! it is! — it is! — the cannon's opening roar! 

Within a window'd niche of that high hall 
Sate Brunswick's fated chieftain ; he did hear 
That sound the first amidst the festival, 
And caught its tone with Death's prophetic ear: 
And when they smil'd because he deem'd it near, 
His heart more truly knew that peal too well 
Which stretch' d his father on a bloody bier, 
And rous'd the vengeance blood alone could quell: 
He rush'd into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell! 

Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro, 
And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress, 
And cheeks all pale, Avhich but an hour ago 
Blush'd at the praise of their own loveliness ; 
And there were sudden partings, such as press 
The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs 
Which ne'er might be repeated; who could guess 
If ever more should meet those mutual eyes, 
Since upon nights so sweet such awful morn could rise? 

And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed, 
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car, 
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed, 
And swiftly forming in the ranks of war; 
I I 



362 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 

And the deep thunder peal on peal afar; 
And near, the beat of the alarming drum 
Rous'd up the soldier ere the morning star; 
While throng'd the citizens with terror dumb, 
Or whispering, with white lips — " The foe! they come! 
they come!" 

And wild and high the " Cameron's gathering" rose! 
The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn's hills 
Have heard — and heard, too, have her Saxon foes : — 
How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills, 
Savage and shrill! But with the breath which fills 
Their mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineers 
With the fierce native daring, which instils 
The Stirling memory of a thousand years; 
And Evan's, Donald's fame rings in each clansman's ears ! 

And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves, 
Dewy with nature's tear-drops, as they pass, 
Grieving — if aught inanimate e'er grieves — 
Over the unreturning brave, — alas ! 
Ere evening to be trodden like the grass 
Which now beneath them, but above shall grow 
In its next verdure; when this fiery mass 
Of living valor, rolling on the foe 
And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low! 

Last noon beheld them full of lusty life, 
Last eve in Beauty's circle proudly gay, 
The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife, 
The morn the marshalling in arms, — the day 
Battle's magnificently-stern array! 
The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which when rent 
The earth is cover'd thick with other clay, 
Which her own clay shall cover — heap'd and pent, 
Rider and horse, — friend, foe, — in one red burial blent! 

Byron. 

Lord William. 
No eye beheld when William plung'd 

Young Edmund in the stream, 
No human ear but William's heard 

Young Edmund's drowning scream. 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 363 

Submissive all the vassals own'd 

The murderer for their lord, 
And he, as rightful heir, possess'd 

The house of Erlingford. 
The ancient house of Erlingford 

Stood in a fair domain, 
And Severn's ample waters near 

Roll'd through the fertile plain. 
And often the way-faring man 

Would love to linger there, 
Forgetful of his onward road, 

To gaze on scenes so fair. 
But never could Lord William dare 

To gaze on Severn's stream; 
In every wind that swept its waves 

He heard young Edmund scream! 
In vain at midnight's silent hour 

Sleep clos'd the murderer's eyes, 
In every dream the murderer saw 

Young Edmund's form arise! 
In vain by restless conscience driven 

Lord William left his home, 
Far from the scenes that saw his guilt, 

In pilgrimage to roam. 
To other climes the pilgrim fled — 

But could not fly despair; 
He sought his home again — but peace 

Was still a stranger there. 
Slow were the passing hours, yet swift 

The months appear'd to roll; 
And now the day return'd that shook 

With terror William's soul — 
A day that William never felt 

Return without dismay; 
For well had conscience kalendar'd 

Young Edmund's dying day. 
A fearful day was that! the rains 

Fell fast with tempest roar, 
And the swoln tide of Severn spread 

Far on the level shore. 



364 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 

In vain Lord William sought the feast, 

In vain he quaff'd the bowl, 
And strove with noisy mirth to drown 

The anguish of his soul — 
The tempest, as its sudden swell 

In gusty howlings came, 
With cold and death-like feelings seem'd 

To thrill his shuddering frame. 
Reluctant now, as night came on, 

His lonely couch he press'd; 
And wearied out, he sunk to sleep, — 

To sleep — but not to rest. 
Beside that couch his brother's form, 

Lord Edmund, seem'd to stand, 
Such and so pale as when in death 

He grasp'd his brother's hand; 
Such and so pale his face as when 

With faint and faultering tongue, 
To William's care, a dying charge, 

He left his orphan son. 
" I bade thee with a father's love 

My orphan Edmund guard — 
Well, William, hast thou kept thy charge! 

Now take thy due reward ! " 
He started up, each limb convuls'd 

With agonizing fear: 
He only heard the storm of night, — 

'Twas music to his ear. 
When, lo ! the voice of loud alarm 

His inmost soul appals; 
" What, ho! Lord William, rise in haste! 

The water saps thy walls ! " 
He rose in haste, beneath the walls 

He saw the flood appear; 
It hemm'd him round, 'twas midnight now, 

No human aid was near! 
He heard the shout of joy, for now 

A boat approach'd the wall, 
And eager to the welcome aid 

They crowd for safety all. — 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 365 

" My boat is small/' the boatman cried, 

" Twill bear but one away; 
Come in, Lord William! and do ye 

In God's protection stay." 
Strange feeling fiU'd them at his voice, 

Even in that hour of wo, 
That, save their Lord, there was not one 

Who wish'd with him to go. 
But William leap'd into the boat, 

His terror was so sore; 
" Thou shalt have half my gold!" he cried, 

" Haste! — haste to yonder shore!" 
The boatman plied the oar, the boat 

Went light along the stream — 
Sudden Lord William heard a cry 

Like Edmund's drowning scream. 
The boatman paus'd, " methought I heard 

A child's distressful cry!" 
" 'Twas but the howling wind of night," 

Lord William made reply; 
" Haste! — haste! — ply swift and strong the oar! 

Haste! — haste across the stream!" — 
Again Lord William heard a cry 

Like Edmund's drowning scream. 
" I heard a child's distressful voice," 

The boatman cried again. 
" Nay hasten on! — the night is dark — 

And we should search in vain!" 
And, Oh! Lord William, dost thou know 

How dreadful 'tis to die? 
And canst thou without pitying hear 

A child's expiring cry? 
" How horrible it is to sink 

Beneath the chilly stream. 
To stretch the powerless arms in vain, 

In vain for help to scream ! " 
The shriek again was heard: It came 

More deep, more piercing loud: 
That instant o'er the flood the moon 

Shone through a broken cloud; 



366 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 

And near them they beheld a child, 

Upon a crag he stood, 
A little crag, and all around 

Was spread the rising flood. 
The boatman plied the oar, the boat 

Approach'd his resting-place: 
The moon-beam shone upon the child, 

And show'd how pale his face. 
" Now reach thine hand!" the boatman cried, 

" Lord William, reach and save!" — 
The child stretch'd forth his little hands 

To grasp the hand he gave — 
Then William shriek'd ; the hand he touched 

Was cold and damp and dead! 
He felt young Edmund in his arms! 

A heavier weight than lead! 
The boat sunk down, the murderer sunk 

Beneath the avenging stream; 
He rose, he shriek'd — no human ear 

Heard William's drowning scream ! Saiithey. 



Outalissi. 
Night came,— and in their lighted bower, full late, 
The joy of converse had endur'd — when, hark! 
Abrupt and loud a summons shook their gate; 
And heedless of the dog's obstreperous bark, 
A form has rush'd amidst them from the dark, 
And spread his arms, — and fallen upon the floor: 
Of aged strength his limbs retain'd the mark; 
But desolate he look'd, and famish'd-poor, 
As ever shipwreck'd wretch lone left on desert shore. 

Uprisen, each wondering brow is knit and arch'd: 
A spirit from the dead they deem him first! 
To speak he tries; but quivering, pale, and parch'd, 
From lips, as by some powerless dream accurs'd, 
Emotions unintelligible burst; 
And long his filmed eye is red and dim; 
At length the pi t y-pr offer 'd cup his thirst 
Had half assuag'd, and nerv'd his shuddering limb, 
When Albert's hand he grasp'd; — but Albert knew not 
him! — 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 367 

" And Last thou then forgot," — he cried forlorn, 
And ey'd the group with half indignant air, — 
" Oh! hast thou, Christian chief, forgot the morn 
When I with thee the cup of peace did share? 
Then stately was this head, and dark this hair, 
That now is white as Appalachia's snow; 
But, if the weight of fifteen years' despair, 
And age hath bow'd me, and the torturing fo, 
Bring me my boy — and he will his deliverer know!" — 

It was not long, with eyes and heart of flame, 
Ere Henry to his lov'd Oneyda flew: 
" Bless thee, my guide !" — but, backward, as he came, 
The chief his old bewilder'd head withdrew, 
And grasp'd his arm, and look'd and look'd him through. 
Twas strange — nor could the group a smile control — 
The long the doubtful scrutiny to view : — 
At last delight o'er all his features stole, 
" It is — my own!" he cried, and clasp'd him to his soul 

" Yes! thou recall'st my pride of years, for then 

The bow-string of my spirit was not slack, 

When, spite of woods, and floods, and ambush'd men, 

I bore thee like the quiver on my back, 

Fleet as the whirlwind hurries on the rack; 

Nor foeman then, nor cougar's crouch I fear'd, 

For I was strong as mountain cataract! 

And dost thou not remember how we cheer'd, 

Upon the last hill-top, when white men's huts appear'd? 

" Then welcome be my death-song, and my death! 

Since I have seen thee, and again embrac'd!" 

And longer had he spent his toil-worn breath ; 

But with affectionate and eager haste, 

Was every arm outstretch' d around their guest, 

To welcome and to bless his aged head. 

Soon was the hospitable banquet plac'd; 

And Gertrude's lovely hands a balsam shed 

On wounds, with fever'd joy, that more profusely bled. 

" But this is not a time," — he started up, 

And smote his breast with wo-denouncing hand — 

" This is no time to fill the joyous cup! 

The Mammoth comes! — the fo! — the Monster Brandt! — 

With all his howling desolating band ! — 



368 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 

These eyes have seen their blade, and burning pine: 

Awake, at once, and silence — half your land ! 

Red is the cup they drink; — but not with wine! 

Awake, and watch to-night, or see no morning shine ! 

" Scorning to wield the hatchet for his bribe, 

'Gainst Brandt himself I went to battle forth : 

Accursed Brandt ! he left of all my tribe 

Nor man, nor child, nor thing of living birth : 

No! — not the dog, that watch'd my household hearth, 

Escap'd, that night of blood, upon our plains ! 

All perish'd! — I alone am left on earth, 

To whom nor relative nor blood remains — 

No ! — not a kindred drop that runs in human veins ! 

" But go, and rouse your warriors ! — for — if right 

These old bewilder'd eyes could guess, by signs 

Of strip'd and starred banners — on yon height 

Of eastern cedars, o'er the creek of pines, 

Some fort embattled by your country shines: 

Deep roars the innavigable gulf below 

Its squared rock, and palisaded lines. 

Go, seek the light its warlike beacons show! 

Whilst I in ambush wait, for vengeance, and the fo!'' 

Campbell 

A Beth Gelert. 
The spearman heard the bugle sound, 

And cheerly smil'd the morn, 
And many a brach, and many a hound, 

Attend Llewellyn's horn : 
And still he blew a louder blast, 

And gave a louder cheer; 
" Come, Gelert ! why art thou the last 

Llewellyn's horn to hear? 
" Oh, where does faithful Gelert roam? 

The flower of all his race! 
So true, so brave, a lamb at home — 

A lion in the chase!" 
'Twas only at Llewellyn's board 

The faithful Gelert fed; 
He watch'd, he serv'd, he cheer'd his lord, 

And sentinel'd his bed. 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 369 

In sooth, he was a peerless hound, 

The gift of royal John; 
But now no Gelert could be found, 

And all the chase rode on. 
And now, as over rocks and dells 

The gallant chidings rise, 
All Snowdown's craggy chaos yells, 

With many mingled cries. 

That day Llewellyn little lov'd 

The chase of hart or hare, 
And scant and small the booty prov'd, 

For Gelert was not there. 
Unpleas'd, Llewellyn homeward hied, 

When, near the portal seat, 
His truant Gelert he espied, 

Bounding his Lord to greet. 
But when he gain'd his castle door, 

Aghast the chieftain stood; 
The hound was smear' d with gouts of gore, 

His lips and fangs ran blood ! 
Llewellyn gaz'd with wild surprise, 

Unus'd such looks to meet ; 
His favorite check'd his joyful guise, 

And crouch'd and lick'd his feet. 
Onward in haste Llewellyn pass'd 

(And on went Gelert too), 
And still, where'er his eyes were cast, 

Fresh blood-gouts shock' d his view ! 
O'erturn'd his infant's bed, he found 

The blood-stain'd covert rent, 
And, all around, the walls and ground 

With recent blood besprent. 
He call'd his child — no voice replied; 

He search'd — with terror wild; 
Blood! blood! he found on every side, 

But no where found the child ! 
" Hell-hound ! by thee my child's devour'd !" 

The frantic father cried, 
And to the hilt his vengeful sword 

He plung'd in Gelert's side ! — 



370 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 

His suppliant, as to earth he fell, 

No pity could impart; 
But still his Gelert's dying yell 

Pass'd heavy o'er his heart. 
Arous'd by Gelert's dying yell, 

Some slumberer waken'd nigh; 
What words the parent's joy can tell, 

To hear his infant cry ! 
Conceal'd beneath a mangled heap, 

His hurried search had miss'd, 
All glowing from his rosy sleep, 

His cherub boy he kiss'd! 
Nor scratch had he, nor harm, nor dread — 

But the same couch beneath, 
Lay a great wolf, all torn and dead — 

Tremendous still in death! 
Ah! what was then Llewellyn's pain! 

For now the truth was clear; 
The gallant hound the wolf had slain, 

To save Llewellyn's heir. 
Vain, vain was all Llewellyn's wo: 

" Best of thy land adieu! 
The frantic deed which laid thee low, 

This heart shall ever rue!" 
And now a gallant tomb they raise, 

With costly sculpture deck'd; 
And marbles, storied with his praise, 

Poor Gelert's bones protect. 
Here never could the spearmen pass, 

Or forester, unmov'd; 
Here oft the tear-besprinkled grass 

Llewellyn's sorrow prov'd. 
And here he hung his horn and spear; 

And, oft as evening fell, 
In fancy's piercing sounds would hear 

Poor Gelert's dying yell! Spencer. 

The Road to Happiness open to all Men. 
Oh happiness! our being's end and aim; 
Good, pleasure, ease, content! whatever thy name; 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 371 

That something still which prompts the eternal sigh, 

For which we bear to live, or dare to die; 

Which still so near us, yet beyond us lies, 

O'erlook'd, seen double, by the fool and wise; 

Plant of celestial seed, if dropp'd below, 

Say, in what mortal soil thou deign'st to grow? 

Fair opening to some court's propitious shine, 

Or deep with diamonds in the flaming mine? 

Twin'd with the wreaths Parnassian laurels yield, 

Or reap'd in iron harvests of the field? 

Where grows? where grows it not? if vain our toil, 

We ought to blame the culture, not the soil. 

Fix'd to no spot is happiness sincere ; 

'Tis no where to be found, or every where; 

'Tis never to be bought, but always free; 

And, fled from monarchs, St. John! dwells with thee. 

Ask of the learn'd the way. The learn'd are blind; 
This bids to serve, and that to shun mankind. 
Some place the bliss in action, some in ease; 
Those call it pleasure, and contentment these. 
Some sunk to beasts, find pleasure end in pain; 
Some swell'd to gods, confess even virtue vain: 
Or indolent, to each extreme they fall, 
To trust in every thing, or doubt of all. 

Who thus define it, say they are more or less 
Than this, that happiness is happiness? 
Take nature's path, and mad opinion's leave; 
All states can reach it, and all heads conceive: 
Obvious her goods, in no extreme they dwell ; 
There needs but thinking right, and meaning well. 
And mourn our various portions, as we please, 
Equal is common sense, and common ease. 

Remember, man, " the universal cause 
Acts not by partial, but by general laws;" 
And makes what happiness we justly call, 
Subsist not in the good of one, but all. Pope, 



The Field of Morat. 

But these recede. Above me are the Alps, 
The palaces of Nature, whose vast walls 



372 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 

Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps, 
And thron d Eternity in icy halls 
Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls 
The avalanche — the thunderbolt of snow! 
All that expands the spirit, yet appals, 
Gather around these summits, as to show 
How Earth may pierce to Heaven, yet leave vain man 
below. 

But ere these matchless heights I dare to scan, 
There is a spot should not be pass'd in vain, 
Morat! the proud, the patriot field! where man 
May gaze on ghastly trophies of the slain, 
Nor blush for those who conquer'd on that plain ; 
Here Burgundy bequeath'd his tombless host, 
A bony heap, through ages to remain, 
Themselves their monument; — the Stygian coast 

Unsepulchred they roam'd, and shriek'd each wandering 

ghost 

While Waterloo with Cannse's carnage vies, 
Morat and Marathon twin names shall stand; 
They were true Glory's stainless victories, 
Won by the unambitious heart and hand 
Of a proud, brotherly, and civic band ! 
All unbought champions in no princely cause 
Of vice-entail'd Corruption; they no land 
Doom'd to bewail the blasphemy of laws 

Making king's rights divine, by some Draconic clause. 
By a lone wall a lonelier column rears 
A gray and grief-worn aspect of old days, 
'Tis the last remnant of the wreck of years, 
And looks as with the wild-bewilder d gaze 
Of one to stone converted by amaze, 
Yet still with consciousness; and there it stands 
Making a marvel that it not decays, 
When the coeval pride of human hands, 

Level'd Aventicum, hath strew'd her subject lands. 
And there — oh ! sweet and sacred be the name ! — 
Julia — the daughter, the devoted — gave 
Her youth to Heaven ; her heart, beneath a claim 
Nearest to Heaven's, broke — oler a father's grave. 
Justice is sworn 'gainst tears, and her's would crave 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 



373 



The life she liv'd in; but the judge was just, 

And then she died on him she could not save. 

Their tomb was simple, and without a bust, 
And held within their urn one mind, one heart, one dust. 

But these are deeds which should not pass away, 

And names that must not wither, tho the earth 

Forgets her empires with a just decay, 

The enslavers and the enslav'd, their death and birth; 

The high, the mountain-majesty of worth 

Should be, and shall, survivor of its wo! 

And from its immortality look forth 

In the sun's face, like yonder Alpine snow, 
Imperishably pure beyond all things below. Byron* 



Thunder- Storm among the Alps. 

It is the hush of night ; and all between 
Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear, 
Mellow' d and mingling, yet distinctly seen — 
Save darken'd Jura, whose capp'd heights appear 
Precipitously steep; and drawing near, 
There breathes a living fragrance from the shore, 
Of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on the ear 
Drops the light drip of the suspended oar, 

Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more; 
He is an evening reveller, who makes 
His life an infancy, and sings his fill! 
At intervals, some bird from out the brakes, 
Starts into voice a moment — then is still. 
There seems a floating whisper on the hill — 
But that is fancy, for the star-light dews 
All silently their tears of love instil, 
Weeping themselves away, till they infuse 

Deep into Nature's breast the spirit of her hues. 
The sky is chang'd! — and such a change! O night, 
And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong! 
Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light 
Of a dark eye in woman! Far along, 
From peak to peak, the rattling crags among 
Leaps the live thunder! — not from one lone cloud; 
But every mountain now hath found a tongue, 

K K 



374 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 

And Jura answers, through her misty shroud, 
Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud! 

And this is in the night: — Most glorious night! 
Thou wert not sent for slumber! Let me be 
A sharer in thy fierce and far delight, — 
A portion of the tempest and of thee ! 
How the lit lake shines ! — a phosphoric sea ! 
And the big rain comes dancing to the earth ! 
And now again 'tis black, — and now, the glee 
Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth, 
As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth. 

Now, where the swift Rhone cleaves his way between 
Heights — which appear as lovers who have parted 
In hate, whose mining depths so intervene, 
That they can meet no more, tho broken-hearted! 
Tho in their souls, which thus each other thwarted, 
Love was the very root of the fond rage 
Which blighted their life's bloom, and then — departed ! — 
Itself expir'd, but leaving them an age 
Of years — all winters! — war within themselves to wage ! — 

Now, where the quick Rhone thus hath cleft his way, 
The mightiest of the storms hath ta'en his stand: 
For here, not one, but many, make their play, 
And fling their thunder-bolts from hand to hand, 
Flashing and cast around ! of all the band, 
The brightest through these parted hills hath fork'd 
His lightnings, — as if he did understand, 
That in such gaps as desolation work'd, 
There the hot shaft should blast whatever therein lurk'd. 

Byron, 



The Present Aspect of Greece. 

He who hath bent him o'er the dead, 

Ere the first day of death is fled — 

The first dark day of nothingness, 

The last of danger and distress — 

Before Decay's effacing fingers 

Have swept the lines where beauty lingers, 

And mark'd the mild angelic air, 

The rapture of repose that's there — 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 37& 

The fix d yet tender traits that streak 

The langor of the placid cheek — 

And — but for that sad shrouded eye, 

That fires not — wins not — weeps not— now — 
And but for that chill changeless brow, 

Whose touch thrills with mortality; 

And curdles to the gazers heart, 

As if to him it could impart 

The doom, he dreads, yet dwells upon — 

Yes — but for these — and these alone — 

Some moments — ay — one treacherous hour, 

He still might doubt the tyrant's power, 

So fair — so calm — so softly seal'd 

The first — last look — by death reveal'd ! 
Such is the aspect of this shore. 

'Tis Greece — but living Greece no more ! 

So coldly sweet, so deadly fair, 

We start — for soul is wanting there. 

Her's is the loveliness in death, 

That parts not quite with parting breath; 

But beauty with that fearful bloom, 

That hue which haunts it to the tomb — 

Expressions last receding ray, 

A gilded halo hovering round decay, 

The farewell beam of Feeling past away ! 

Spark of that flame — perchance of heavenly birth — 

Which gleams — -but warms no more its cherish'd earth! 

Byron. 



Jupiter to the inferior Deities, forbidding them to take any 
part in the Contention between the Greeks and Trojans, 

Aurora, now, fair daughter of the dawn, 
Sprinkled with rosy light the dewy lawn, 
When Jove conven'd the senate of the skies, 
Where high Olympus' cloudy tops arise. 
The sire of gods his awful silence broke : 
The heavens, attentive, trembled as he spoke. — 

" Celestial states! immortal gods give ear: 
Hear our decree; and reverence what ye hear: 
The fix'd decree, which not all heaven can move, 
Thou, Fate! fulfil it; and ye, Powers! approve. — 



3/6 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 

What god shall enter yon forbidden field, 

Who yields assistance, or but wills to yield, 

Back to the skies, with shame he shall be driven, 

Gash'd with dishonest wounds, the scorn of heaven. 

Or from the sacred hill with fury thrown, 

Deep in the dark Tartarean gulf shall groan ; 

With burning chains fix'd to the brazen floors, 

And lock'd by hell's inexorable doors ; 

As far beneath the infernal centre hurl'd, 

As from the centre to the ethereal world. 

Let each, submissive, dread those dire abodes, 

Nor tempt the vengeance of the God of gods. 

League all your forces, then, ye powers above; 

Your strength unite, against the might of Jove : 

Let down your golden, everlasting chain, 

Whose strong embrace holds heaven and earth, and main, 

Strive all, of mortal and immortal birth, 

To drag by this the thunderer down to earth — 

Ye strive in vain. If I but stretch this hand, 

I heave the gods, the ocean, and the land; 

I fix the chain to great Olympus' height, 

And the vast world hangs trembling in my sight. 

For such I reign unbounded and above; 

And such are men, and gods, compar'd to Jove." Pope. 



On the Fall of Algiers. 

What voice, from the south, o'er the dark rolling wave, 
Thus rouses to vengeance the isles of the brave? 
'Tis the red blood from Bona, inhumanly shed, 
That calls for revenge in the name of the dead: 
Then haste to your bulwarks, ye sailors so true ! 
For Britain has vested her vengeance in you. 
And now in the Charlotte your hero appears, 
With the red flag of ruin to plant in Algiers — 
Tis finish'd, Britannia! thy white cliffs are cheer d; 
In the just cause of Freedom thy channel is clear'd ; 
Thy banners of glory, now seen, from afar, 
Wave high o'er the sleeping volcanos of war: 

Ye heroes of ocean ! whose blood and whose breath, 
Are cheerfully spent in the battle of death, 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 377 

Go forth at humanity's noblest call, 
For the Pirate — the Tyrant — the Despot must fall. — 
But, hark! as the morn gilds the coast of the fo, 
Why issue such groans from the dungeons of wo? 
Tis the Tyrant fast bolting the chains of the slave, 
As the top-sails of Freedom advance on the wave. 
" To arms!" is the call on the Barbary coast, 
Bind the Consul in chains, let each fly to his post, 
Let the flag of the Prophet to vengeance inspire, 
Till the fo be extinct, and his bulwarks on fire; 
Board, burn, and destroy, for his blood is profane, 
'Tis Omer commands, and the slaves shall be slain; 
The proud fleet of Britain shall triumph no more, 
And its boasted defenders shall reek in their gore. 

But what means the banner that waves in the bay? 
'Tis the mild flag of Mercy address'd to the Dey, 
He refuses its call, tho Britannia, in sight, 
Cries — Ready, all ready, for vengeance and fight. 
The lightnings of heaven now glare in the sky, 
The thunder rolls deep as it peels from on high! 
The spirits from Bona recline on the wave, 
And the feelings of Britain encircle the slave ; 
Tremendous in power, the Queen of the deep 
Recognizes the fo as he arms on the steep, 
She enters her station, and as she proclaims 
The signal for slaughter, — the fleet is in flames! 
What crash do I hear from the rampart on high? 
For the batteries sink, and the Musselmen die! 
'Tis the Prophet's own standard, the standard of wrath, 
The black bloody flag of destruction and death ! 
Lo ! it falls to the ground over heaps of the slain, 
Whilst the red shower of ruin flames bright o'er the plain . 

Night closes in wo, o'er a city on fire, 
And the flames of their navy rise higher and higher; 
Whilst the heroes of Britain, unwearied in fight, 
Sing the conqueror's song in the shades of the night ; » 
The iron-bound prisoner hastes to the shore, 
And raises the goblet of Freedom once more, 
On the deck of the heroes, he gazes abroad, 
Gives his hand to the sailor, his heart to his God. 

M'Gill 



• 



378 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 



Battle of Albuera. 

Hark! heard you not those hoofs of dreadful note? 
Sounds not the clang of conflict on the heath? 
Saw ye not whom the reeking sabre smote; 
Nor sav'd your brethren ere they sank beneath 
Tyrants and tyrants' slaves? — the fires of death, 
The bale-fires flash on high: — from rock to rock 
Each volley tells that thousands cease to breathe; 
Death rides upon the sulphury Siroc, 
Red Battle stamps his foot, and nations feel the shock. 

Lo! where the Giant on the mountain stands, 
His blood-red tresses deepening in the sun, 
With death-shot glowing in his fiery hands, 
And eye that scorcheth all it glares upon; 
Restless it rolls, now fix'd, and now anon 
Flashing afar, — and at his iron feet 
Destruction cowers to mark what deeds are done ; 
For on this morn three potent nations meet, 
To shed before his shrine the blood he deems most sweet. 

By Heaven! it is a splendid sight to see 

(For one who hath no friend, nor brother there) 

Their rival scarfs of mix'd embroidery, 

Their various arms that glitter in the air! 

What gallant war-hounds rouse them from their lair, 

And gnash their fangs, loud yelling for the prey! 

All join the chase, but few the triumph share ; 

The Grave shall bear the chiefest prize away, 

And Havoc scarce for joy can number their array. 

Three hosts combine to offer sacrifice; 
Three tongues prefer strange orisons on high; 
Three gaudy standards flout the pale blue skies; 
The shouts are France, Spain, Albion, Victory! 
The fo, the victim, and the fond ally 
That fights for all, but ever fights in vain, 
Are met — as if at home they could not die — 
To feed the crow on Talavera's plain, 
And fertilize the field that each pretends to gain. 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME, 379 

There shall they rot — Ambition's honor'd fools ! 
Yes, Honor decks the turf that wraps their clay ! 
Vain Sophistry! in these behold the tools, 
The broken tools, that tyrants cast away 
By myriads, when they dare to pave their way 
With human hearts — to what? — a dream alone. 
Can despots compass aught that hails their sway? 
Or call with truth one span of earth their own, 
Save that wherein at last they crumble bone by bone? 

Byron* 



Bull-JBaiting. 

Thrice sounds the clarion ; lo ! the signal falls, 
The den expands, and Expectation mute 
Gapes round the silent circle's peopled walls. 
Bounds with one lashing spring the mighty brute, 
And^wildly staring, spurns, with sounding foot, 
The sand, nor blindly rushes on his fo: 
Here, there, he points his threatening front, to suit 
His first attack, wide waving to and fro 
His angry tail; red rolls his eye's dilated glow. 

Sudden he stops; his eye is fix'd: away, 
Away, thou heedless boy! prepare the spear: 
Now is thy time, to perish, or display 
The skill that yet may check his mad career. 
With well-tim'd croupe the nimble coursers veer; 
On foams the bull, but not unscath'd he goes; 
Streams from his flank the crimson torrent clear : 
He flies, he wheels, distracted with his throes; 
Dart follows dart; lance, lance; loud bello wings speak his 
woes. 

Again he comes; nor dart nor lance avail, 
Nor the wild plunging of the tortur'd horse ; 
Tho man and man's avenging arms assail, 
Vain are his weapons, vainer is his force. 
One gallant steed is stretch'd a mangled corse; 
Another, hideous sight! unseam'd appears, 
His gory chest unveils life's panting source; 
Tho death-struck, still his feeble frame he rears; 
Staggering, but stemming all, his lord unharm'd he bears. 



380 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 

Foil'd, bleeding, breathless, furious to the last, 
Full in the centre stands the bull at bay, 
'Mid wounds, and clinging darts, and lances brast, 
And foes disabled in the brutal fray: 
And now the Matadores around him play, 
Shake the red cloak, and poise the ready brand: 
Once more through all he bursts his thundering way — 
Vain rage ! the mantle quits the conynge hand, 
Wraps his fierce eye — 'tis past — he sinks upon the sand ! 

Where his vast neck just mingles with the spine, 
Sheath'd in his form the deadly weapon lies. 
He stops — he starts — disdaining to decline : 
Slowly he falls, amidst triumphant cries, 
Without a groan, without a struggle dies. 
The decorated car appears — on high 
The corse is piled — sweet sight for vulgar eyes — 
Four steeds that spurn the rein, as swift as shy, 
Hurl the dark bulk along, scarce seen in dashing by. 

Byron. 



Clitumnus. 

But thou, Clitumnus ! in thy sweetest wave 
Of the most living crystal that was e'er 
The haunt of river nymph, to gaze and lave 
Her limbs where nothing hid them, thou dost rear 
Thy grassy banks whereon the milk-white steer 
Grazes; the purest god of gentle waters! 
And most serene of aspect, and most clear; 
Surely that stream was unprofan'd by slaughters — 
A mirror and a bath for Beauty's youngest daughters ! 

And on thy happy shore a temple still, 
Of small and delicate proportion, keeps, 
Upon a mild declivity of hill, 
Its memory of thee ; beneath it sweeps 
Thy current's calmness ; oft from out it leaps 
The finny darter with the glittering scales, 
Who dwells and revels in thy glassy deeps ; 
While, chance, some scatter'd water-lily sails 
Down where the shallower wave still tells its bubbling 
tales. 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME, 381 

Pass not unbless'd the Genius of the place ! 
If through the air a zephyr more serene 
Win to the brow, 'tis his ; and if ye trace 
Along his margin a more eloquent green, 
If on the heart the freshness of the scene 
Sprinkle its coolness, and from the dry dust 
Of weary life a moment lave it clean 
With nature's baptism, — 'tis to him ye must 
Pay orisons for this suspension of disgust. 

The roar of waters ! — from the headlong height 
Velino cleaves the wave-worn precipice; 
The fall of waters ! rapid as the light 
The flashing mass foams shaking the abyss; 
The hell of waters ! where they howl and hiss, 
And boil in endless torture; while the sweat 
Of their great agony, wrung out from this 
Their Phlegethon, curls round the rocks of jet 
That gird the gulf around, in pitiless horror set, 

And mounts in spray the skies, and thence again 
Returns in an unceasing shower, which round, 
With its unemptied cloud of gentle rain, 
Is an eternal April to the ground, 
Making it all one emerald : — how profound 
The gulf! and how the giant element 
From rock to rock leaps with delirious bound, 
Crushing the cliffs, which, downward worn and rent 
With his fierce footsteps, yield in chasms a fearful vent 

To the broad column which rolls on, and shows 
More like the fountain of an infant sea 
Torn from the womb of mountains by the throes 
Of a new world, than only thus to be 
Parent of rivers, which flow gushingly, 
With many windings, through the vale: — Look back! 
Lo! where it comes like an eternity, 
As if to sweep down all things in its track, 
Charming the eye with dread, — a matchless cataract, 

Horribly beautiful! but on the verge, 
From side to side, beneath the glittering morn, 
An Iris sits, amidst the infernal surge, 
Like Hope upon a death-bed, and, unworn 



382 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 

Its steady dyes, while all around is torn 
By the distracted waters, bears serene 
Its brilliant hues with all their beams unshorn: 
Resembling, mid the torture of the scene, 
Love watching Madness with unalterable mien. 



The Gladiator, 

The seal is set. — Now welcome, thou dread power ! 
Nameless, yet thus omnipotent, which here 
Walk'st in the shadow of the midnight hour 
With a deep awe, yet all distinct from fear; 
Thy haunts are ever where the dead walls rear 
Their ivy mantles, and the solemn scene 
Derives from thee a sense so deep and clear 
That we become a part of what has been, 
And grow unto the spot, all-seeing but unseen. 

And here the buzz of eager nations ran, 
In murmur' d pity, or loud-roar'd applause, 
As man was slaughter'd by his fellow man. 
And wherefore slaughter'd? wherefore, but because 
Such were the bloody Circus' genial laws, 
And the imperial pleasure. — Wherefore not? 
What matters where we fall to fill the maws 
Of worms — on battle-plains or listed spot? 
Both are but theatres where the chief actors rot. 

I see before me the Gladiator lie: 
He leans upon his hand — his manly brow 
Consents to death, but conquers agony, 
And his droop'd head sinks gradually low — 
And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow 
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one, 
Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now 
The arena swims around him — he is gone, 
Ere ceas'd the inhuman shout which hail'd the wretch 
who won. 

He heard it, but he heeded not — his eyes 
Were with his heart, and that was far away; 
He reck'd not of the life he lost nor prize, 
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 383 

There were his young barbarians all at play, 
TJiere was their Dacian mother — he, their sire, 
Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday — 
All this rush'd with his blood — Shall he expire 
And unaveng'd? — Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire! 

Byron. 



» WWIW<W » W » W* » » < WVWWV 



Address to the Ocean. 

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, 
There is a rapture on the lonely shore, 
There is society, where none intrudes, 
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar: 
I love not Man the less, but Nature more, 
From these our interviews, in which I steal 
From all I may be, or have been before, 
To mingle with the Universe, and feel 
What I can ne'er express, yet can not all conceal. 

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean — roll! 
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; 
Man marks the earth with ruin — his control 
Stops with the shore; — upon the watery plain 
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain 
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, 
When, for a moment, like a drop of rain, 
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, 
Without a grave, unknell'd, uncofhn'd, and unknown. 

His steps are not upon thy paths, — thy fields 
Are not a spoil for him, — thou dost arise 
And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields 
For earth's destruction thou dost all despise, 
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, 
And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray 
And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies 
His petty hope in some near port or bay, 
And dashest him again to earth: — there let him lay. 

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls 
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake, 
And monarchs tremble in their capitals, 
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make 



384 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 

Their clay creator the vain title take 
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war; 
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, 
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar 
Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar. 

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee — 
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they? 
Thy waters wasted them while they were free, 
And many a tyrant since; their shores obey 
The stranger, slave, or savage ; their decay 
Has dried up realms to deserts: — not so thou, 
Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play— 
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow — 
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now. 

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form 
Glasses itself in tempests ; in all time, 
Calm or convuls'd — in breeze, or gale, or storm, 
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime 
Dark-heaving; — boundless, endless, and sublime — 
The image of Eternity — the throne 
Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime 
The monsters of the deep are made ; each zone 
Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. 

And I have lov'd thee, Ocean! and my joy 
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be 
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy 
I wanton'd with thy breakers — they to me 
Were a delight; and if the freshening sea 
Made them a terror — 'twas a pleasing fear, 
For I was as it were a child of thee, 
And trusted to thy billows far and near, 
And laid my hand upon thy mane — as I do here. 

Byron. 



Zuleika. 

By Helle's stream there is a voice of wail! 
And woman's eye is wet—- man's cheek is pale : 
Zuleika! last of Giaffir's race, 

Thy destin'd lord is come too late; 



■ 

EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 385 

He sees not — ne'er shall see thy face! 

Can he not hear 
The loud Wul-wulleh warn his distant ear ? 
Thy handmaids weeping at the gate, 
The Koran-chanters of the hymn of fate, 
The silent slaves with folded arms that wait, 
Sighs in the hall, and shrieks upon the gale, 

Tell him thy tale! 
Thou didst not view thy Selim fall! 

That fearful moment when he left the cave 
Thy heart grew chill: 
He was thy hope — thy joy — thy love — thine all — 
And that last thought on him thou could'st not save 
Sufficed to kill; 
Burst forth in one wild cry — and all was still. 

Peace to thy broken heart, and virgin grave! 
Ah! happy! but of life to lose the worst! 
That grief — tho deep — tho fatal — was thy first ! 
Thrice happy ! ne'er to feel nor fear the force 
Of absence, shame, pride, hate, revenge, remorse! 
And, oh! that pang where more than Madness lies! 
The worm that will not sleep — and never dies; 
Thought of the gloomy day and ghastly night, 
That dreads the darkness, and yet loathes the light, 
That winds around, and tears the quivering heart! 
Ah! wherefore not consume it — and depart! 

Wo to thee, rash and unrelenting chief! 

Vainly thou heap'st the dust upon thy head, 

Vainly the sackcloth o'er thy limbs dost spread! 

By that same hand Abdallah — Selim bled. 
Now let it tear thy beard in idle grief: 
Thy pride of heart, thy bride for Osman's bed, 
She, whom thy sultan had but seen to wed, 
Thy Daughter's dead! 

Hope of thine age, thy twilight's lonely beam, 

The Star hath set that shone on Helle's stream. 
What quench'd its ray? — the blood that thou hast shed! 
Hark! to the hurried question of Despair: 
*' Where is my child?" an Echo answers— " Where?" 

Byron. 



336 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 

The Prisoner of Chillon. 

God! it is a fearful thing 

To see the human soul take wing 
In any shape, in any mood: — 
IVe seen it rushing forth in blood, 
I've seen it on the breaking ocean 
Strive with a swoln convulsive motion, 
IVe seen the sick and ghastly bed 
Of Sin delirious with its dread : 
But these were horrors — this was wo 
Unmix'd with such — but sure and slow: 
He faded, and so calm and meek, 
So softly worn, so sweetly weak, 
So tearless, yet so tender — kind, 
And griev'd for those he left behind; 
With all the while a cheek whose bloom 
Was as a mockery of the tomb, 
Whose tints as gently sunk away 
As a departing rainbow's ray — 
An eye of most transparent light, 
That almost made the dungeon bright, 
And not a word of murmur — not 
A groan o'er his untimely lot, — 
A little talk of better days, 
A little hope my own to raise, 
For I was sunk in silence — lost 
In this last loss, of all the most; 
And then the sighs he would suppress 
Of fainting nature's feebleness, 
More slowly drawn, grew less and less : 

1 listen'd, but I could not hear — 
I call'd, for I was wild with fear; 

I knew 'twas hopeless, but my dread 

Would not be thus admonished; 

I call'd, and thought I heard a sound — 

I burst my chain with one strong bound, 

And rush'd to him : — I found him not, 

JT only stirr'd in this black spot, 

I only liv'd — / only drew 

The accursed breath of dungeon-dew; 

The last — the sole — the dearest link 

Between me and the eternal brink, 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 387 

Which bound me to my failing race, 
Was broken in this fatal place. 
One on the earth, and one beneath — 
My brothers — both had ceas'd to breathe: 
I took that hand which lay so still, 
Alas! my own was full as chill! 
I had not strength to stir, or strive, 
But felt that I was still alive — 
A frantic feeling, when we know 
That what we love shall ne'er be so. 

I know not why 

I could not die, 
I had no earthly hope — but faith, 
And that forbade a selfish death. 

What next befell me then and there 

I know not well — I never knew — 
First came the loss of light, and air, 

And then of darkness too: 
I had no thought, no feeling — none— 
Among the stones I stood a stone. 

A light broke in upon my brain, — 

It was the carol of a bird ; 
It ceas'd, and then it came again, 

The sweetest song ear ever heard, 
And mine was thankful till my eyes 
Ran over with the glad surprise, 
And they that moment could not see 
I was the mate of misery; 
But then by dull degrees came back 
My senses to their wonted track, 
I saw the dungeon walls and floor 
Close slowly round me as before, 
I saw the glimmer of the sun 
Creeping as it before had done, 
But through the crevice where it came 
That bird was perch'd, as fond and tame, 

And tamer than upon the tree; 
A lovely bird, with azure wings, 
And song that said a thousand things, 

And seem'd to say them all for me! 



388 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 

I never saw its like before, 

I ne'er shall see its likeness more : 

It seem'd like me to want a mate, 

But was not half so desolate, 

And it was come to love me when 

None liv'd to love me so again, 

And cheering from my dungeon's brink, 

Had brought me back to feel and think. 

I know not if it late were free, 

Or broke its cage to perch on mine, 
But knowing well captivity, 

Sweet bird! I could not wish for thine! 
Or if it were, in winged guise, 
A visitant from Paradise; 
For — Heaven forgive that thought! the while 
Which made me both to weep and smile; 
I sometimes deem'd that it might be 
My brother's soul come down to me; 
But then at last away it flew, 
And then 'twas mortal — well I knew, 
For he would never thus have flown, 
And left me twice so doubly lone, — 
Lone — as the corse within its shroud, 
Lone — as a solitary cloud, 

A single cloud on a sunny day, 
While all the rest of heaven is clear, 
A frown upon the atmosphere, 
That hath no business to appear 

When skies are blue, and earth is gay. Byron. 



Alp. From the Siege of Corinth. 

He wander'd on, along the beach, 

Till within the range of a carbine's reach 

Of the leaguer'd wall ; but they saw him not, 

Or how could he 'scape from the hostile shot? 

Did traitors lurk in the Christians' hold ? 

Were their hands grown stiff, or their hearts wax'd cold? 

I know not, in sooth; but from yonder wall 

There flash'd no fire, and there hiss'd no ball, 

Tho he stood beneath the bastion's frown, 

That flank'd the sea- ward gate of the town; 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME, 389 

Tho he heard the sound, and could almost tell 

The sullen words of the sentinel, 

As his measur'd step on the stone below 

Clank'd, as he pac d it to and fro; 

And he saw the lean dogs beneath the wall 

Hold o'er the dead their carnival, 

Gorging and growling o'er carcass and limb; 

They were too busy to bark at him ! 

From a Tartar's skull they had stripp'd the flesh, 

As ye peel the fig when its fruit is fresh; 

And their white tusks crunch'd o'er the whiter skull, 

As it slipp'd through their jaws, when their edge grew dull, 

As they lazily mumbled the bones of the dead, 

When they scarce could rise from the spot where they fed ; 

So well had they broken a lingering fast 

With those who had fallen for that night's repast. 

And Alp knew, by the turbans that roll'd on the sand, 

The foremost of these were the best of his band : 

Crimson and green were the shawls of their wear, 

And each scalp had a single long tuft of hair, 

All the rest was shaven and bare. 

The scalps were in the wild dog's maw, 

The hair was tangled round his jaw. 

But close by the shore, on the edge of the gulf, 

There sat a vulture flapping a wolf, 

Who had stolen from the hills, but kept away, 

Scard by the dogs, from the human prey; 

But he seiz'd on his share of a steed that lay, 

Pick'd by the birds, on the sands of the bay. 

Alp tum'd him from the sickening sight: 

Never had shaken his nerves in fight; 

But he better could brook to behold the dying, 

Deep in the tide of their warm blood lying, 

Scorch'd with the death-thirst, and writhing in vain, 

Than the perishing dead who are past all pain. 

There is something of pride in the perilous hour, 

Whate'er be the shape in which death may lower; 

For Fame is there to say who bleeds, 

And Honor's eye on daring deeds! 

But when all is past, it is humbling to tread 

O'er the weltering field of the tombless dead, 



390 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 



And see worms of the earth, and fowls of the air, 

Beasts of the forest, all gathering there; 

All regarding man as their prey, 

All rejoicing in his decay. Byron, 



Conrad. From the Corsair. 
None are all evil — quickening round his heart, 
One softer feeling would not yet depart; 
Oft could he sneer at others as beguil'd 
By passions worthy of a fool or child ; 
Yet 'gainst that passion vainly still he strove, 
And even in him it asks the name of Love ! 
Yes, it was love — unchangeable — unchang'd, 
Felt but for one from whom he never rang'd; 
Tho fairest captives daily met his eye, 
He shunn'd, nor sought, but coldly pass'd them by; 
Tho many a beauty droop'd in prison'd bower, 
None ever sooth'd his most unguarded hour. 
Yes — it was Love — if thoughts of tenderness, 
Tried in temptation, strengthen d by distress, 
Unmov'd by absence, firm in every clime, 
And yet — Oh more than all! — untir'd by time; 
Which nor defeated hope, nor baffled wile, 
Could render sullen were she near to smile, 
Nor rage could fire, nor sickness fret to vent 
On her one murmur of his discontent; 
Which still would meet with joy, with calmness part, 
Lest that his look of grief should reach her heart; 
Which nought remov'd, nor menac'd to remove — 
If there be love in mortals — this was lov^e 1 
He was a villain — ay — reproaches shower 
On him — but not the passion, nor its power, 
Which only prov'd, all other virtues gone, 
Not guilt itself could quench this loveliest one ! Byron* 



Ode to Eloquence. 
Heard ye those loud-contending waves, 

That shook Cecropia's pillar'd state? 
Saw ye the mighty from their graves 

Look up, and tremble at her fate? 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 391 

Who shall calm the angry storm? 
Who the mighty task perform; 

And bid the raging tumult cease? 
See, the son of Hermes rise, 
With syren tongue, and speaking eyes. 

Hush the noise, and sooth to peace! 

See the olive branches waving 

O'er Illissus' winding stream, 
Their lovely limbs the Naiads laving, 

The Muses smiling by, supreme! 

See the nymphs and swains advancing, 
To harmonious measures dancing: 

Grateful Io Pseans rise 
To thee, O Power! who can inspire 
Soothing words — or words of fire, 

And shook thy plumes in Attic skies ! 

Lo ! from the regions of the north, 
^ The reddening storm of battle pours, 
Rolls along the trembling earth, 
Fastens on the Olynthian towers. 

" Where rests the sword? — where sleep the brave? 
Awake! Cecropia's ally save 

From the fury of the blast : 
Burst the storm on Phocis' walls ! 
Rise ! or Greece for ever falls, 

Up, or Freedom breathes her last!" 

The jarring states, obsequious now, 

View the Patriot's hand on high; 
Thunder gathering on his brow, 

Lightning flashing from his eye ! 

Borne by the tide of words along, 

One voice, one mind, inspire the throng! — 
" To arms! to arms! to arms!" they cry, 

" Grasp the shield, and draw the sword, 

Lead us to Philippi's lord, 
Let us conquer him, or die!" 

Ah, Eloquence! thou wast undone; 

Wast from thy native country driven, 
When tyranny eclips'd the sun, 

And blotted out the stars of heaven! 



392 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 

When Liberty from Greece withdrew, 
And o'er the Adriatic flew 

To where the Tiber pours his urn — 
She struck the rude Tarpeian rock, 
Sparks were kindled by the stroke — 

Again thy fires began to burn! 

Now shining forth, thou mad'st compliant, 
The conscript fathers to thy charms, 

Rous'd the world- bestriding giant, 
Sinking fast in Slavery's arms ! 

I see thee stand by Freedom's fane, 
Pouring the persuasive strain, 

Giving vast conceptions birth: 
Hark! I hear thy thunders sound, 
Shake the Forum round and round, 

Shake the pillars of the earth! 

First-born of Liberty divine ! 

Put on Religion's bright array: 
Speak! and the starless grave shall shine 

The portal of eternal day! 

Rise, kindling with the orient beam, 
Let Calvary's hill inspire the theme, 

Unfold the garments roll'd in blood! 
Oh, touch the soul — touch all her chords 
With all the omnipotence of words, 

And point the way to heaven — to God ! Anon. 



Alexanders Feast. 
'Twas at the royal feast, for Persia won 
By Philip's warlike son, 
Aloft in awful state, 
The god-like hero sat 
On his imperial throne. 

His valiant peers were plac'd around, 
Their brows with roses and with myrtle bound: 

So should desert in arms be crown'd. 
The lovely Thais, by his side, 
Sat like a blooming eastern bride, 
In flower of youth, and beauty's pride. — 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 393 

Happy, happy, happy pair! 

None but the brave, 

None but the brave, 

None but the brave, deserves the fair. 
Timotheus plac'd on high 

Amid the tuneful choir, 

With flying fingers touch'd the lyre: 
The trembling notes ascend the sky, 

And heavenly joys inspire. — — 

The song began from Jove, 
Who left his blissful seat above — 
Such is the power of mighty love! — 
A dragons fiery form belied the god: 
Sublime on radient spheres he rode, 

When he to fair Olympia press'd, 
And stamp'd an image of himself, a sovereign of the world ! 

The listening crowd admire the lofty sound: 
" A present deity!" they shout around; 
" A present deity!" the vaulted roofs rebound — 

With ravish'd ears 

The monarch bears, 

Assumes the god, 

Affects to nod, 
And seems to shake the spheres. 

The praise of Bacchus, then, the sweet musician sung, 
Of Bacchus, ever fair and ever young !— 
The jolly god in triumph comes! 
Sound the trumpets! beat the drums! 
Flush' d with a purple grace 
He shows his honest face. 
Now give the hautboys breath! — he comes! he comes! 
Bacchus ever fair and young, 
Drinking joys did first ordain: 
Bacchus' blessings are a treasure; 
Drinking is the soldier's pleasure: 
Rich the treasure; 
Sweet the pleasure; 
Sweet is pleasure, after pain! 

Sooth'd with the sound, the king grew vain ; 
Fought all his battles o'er again: 

And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the 
slain! 



394 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 

The master saw the madness rise ; 
His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes; 

And while he heaven and earth defied—* 
Chang'd his hand and check'd his pride. 
He chose a mournful muse, 
Soft pity to infuse : 
He sang Darius great and good ! 
By too severe a fate, 
Fallen! fallen! fallen! fallen! 
Fallen from his high estate, 
And weltering in his blood! 
Deserted at his utmost need 
By those his former bounty fed, 
On the bare earth expos'd he lies, 
With not a friend to close his eyes ! 

With downcast look the joyless victor sat, 
Revolving, in his alter'd soul, 

The various turns of fate below; 
And, now and then, a sigh he stole, 
And tears began to flow ! 

The mighty master smil'd, to see 
That love was in the next degree : 
'Twas but a kindred sound to move ; 
For pity melts the mind to love. 

Softly sweet, in Lydian measures, 
Soon he soo^h'd his soul to pleasures. 
War, he sung, is toil and trouble: 
Honour but an empty bubble; 

Never ending, still beginning, 
Fighting still, and still destroying. 

If the world be worth thy winning, 
Think, Oh think it worth enjoying! 
Lovely Thais sits beside thee, 
Take the good the gods provide thee ! 
The many rend the skies with loud applause, 
So love was crown'd; but music won the cause.- 
The prince, unable to conceal his pain, 
Gaz'd on the fair 
Who caus'd his care, 
And sigh'd and look'd, sigh'd and look'd, 
Sigh'd and look'd, and sigh'd again: 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 395 

At length, with love and wine at once oppress'd, 
The vanquish'd vinctor — sunk upon her breast! 

Now strike the golden lyre again! 
A louder yet, and yet a louder strain! 
Break his bands of sleep asunder, 
And rouse him, like a rattling peal of thunder! 
Hark! hark! — The horrid sound 
Has rais'd up his head, 
As awak'd from the dead; 
And, amaz'd, he stares around! 
Revenge! revenge! Timotheus cries — 
See the furies arise ! 
See the snakes that they rear, 
How they hiss in their hair, 
And the sparkles that flash from their eyes ! 
Behold a ghastly band, 
Each a torch in his hand! 
These are Grecian ghosts that in battle were slain, 
And unburied remain 
Inglorious on the plain! 
Give the vengeance due 
To the valiant crew! 
Behold ! how they toss their torches on high, 
How they point to the Persian abodes, 
And glittering temples of their hostile gods ! — 
The princes applaud, with a furious joy; 
And the King seiz'd a flambeau, with zeal to destroy; 
Thais led the way, 
To light him to his prey! 
And, like another Helen fir'd — another Troy! 

Thus, long ago, 

Ere heaving bellows learn'd to blow, 

While organs yet were mute; 
Timotheus to his breathing flute 
And sounding lyre, 
Could swell the soul to rage — or kindle soft desire. 

At last divine Cecilia came, 

Inventress of the vocal frame. 
The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store, 

Enlarg'd the former narrow bounds, 

And added length to solemn sounds, 
With nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown before. 



. 



396 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 



Let old Timotheus yield the prize, 

Or both divide the crown : 
He rais'd a mortal to the skies; 

She drew an angel down ! 

The Passions. 
When music, heavenly maid, was young, 
While yet in early Greece she sung, 
The Passions oft, to hear her shell, 
Throng'd around her magic cell, 
Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting, 
Possess'd beyond the muse's painting. 
By turns, they felt the glowing mind 
Disturb'd, delighted, rais'd, refin'd: 
Till once, 'tis said, when all were fir'd, 
Fill'd with fury, rapt, inspir'd, 
From the supporting myrtles round 
They snatch'd her instruments of sound; 
And, as they oft had heard apart 
Sweet lessons of her forceful art, 
Each — for madness rul'd the hour — - 
Would prove his own expressive power. 
First, Fear, his hand, its skill to try, 

Amid the chords bewilder d laid; 
And back recoil 'd, he knew not why, 

Even at the sound himself had made. 
Next, Anger rush'd, his eyes on fire 

In lightnings own'd his sacred stings. 
In one rude clash he struck the lyre, 

And swept, with hurried hands, the strings. 
With -woful measures, wan Despair — 

Low sullen sounds!— *-his grief beguil'd; 
A solemn, strange, and mingled air; 

'Twas sad, by fits — by starts, 'twas wild. 
But thou, O Hope ! with eyes so fair, 
What was thy delighted measure! 
Still it whisper'd promis'd pleasure, 

And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail. 
Still would her touch the strain prolong; 

And, from the rocks, the woods, the vale, 
She call'd on Echo still through all her song. 



Dryden. 



EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 39/ 

And, where her sweetest theme she chose, 
A soft responsive voice was heard at every close; 
And Hope, enchanted, smil'd, and wav'd her golden hair. 

And longer had she sung — but, with a frown, 

Revenge impatient rose. 
He threw his blood-stain'd sword in thunder down; 
And with a withering look, 
The war-denouncing trumpet took, 
And blew a blast, so loud and dread, 

Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of wo: 
And ever and anon, he beat 
The doubling drum, with furious heat. 
And though, sometimes, each dreary pause between, 
Dejected Pity at his side, 
Her soul-subduing voice applied, 
Yet still he kept his wild unalter'd mien; 
Wliile each strain d ball of sight — seem'd bursting from 
his head. 

Thy numbers, Jealousy, to nought were fix'd ; 

Sad proof of thy distressful state! 
Of differing themes the veering song was mix'd: 

And, now, it courted Love; now, raving, call'd on Hate. 

With eyes uprais'd, as one inspir'd, 

Pale Melancholy sat retir'd; 

And from her wild sequester'd seat, 

In notes by distance made more sweet, 
Pour'd through the mellow hom her pensive soul : 

And, dashing soft, from rocks around, 

Bubbling runnels join d the sound. 
Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole ; 

Or o'er some haunted streams, with fond delay — 
Round an holy calm diffusing, 
Love of peace and lonely musing — 

In hollow murmurs died away. 

But, Oh, how alter'd was its sprightlier tone ! 
When Cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue, 

Her bow across her shoulders flung, 
Her buskins gemm'd with morning dew, 

Blew an inspiring air, that dale and thicket rung; 
The hunter s call, to Faun and Dryad known. 
m M 



398 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 

The oak-crown'd Sisters, and their chaste-ey'd Queen, 
Satyrs, and sylvan Boys, were seen, 

Peeping from forth their alleys green: 
Brown Exercise rejoic'd to hear; 
And Sport leap'd up, and seiz'd his beechen spear. 

Last came Joy's ecstatic trial. 
He, with viny crown advancing, 
First to the lively pipe his hand address d; 

But, soon he saw the brisk awakening viol, 
Whose sweet entrancing voice he lov d the best. 
Thev would have thought who heard the strain, 
They saw, in Tempe's vale, her native maids, 
Amid the festal sounding shades, 
To some unwearied minstrel dancing; 

While, as his flying fingers kiss d the strings. 
Love fram'd with mirth a gay fantastic round- 
Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound; 
And he, amidst his frolic play, 

As if he would the charming air repay, 
Shook thousand odors from his dewy wings. ^.^ 



EXTRACTS IN BLANK VERSE. 



The Fallen Planet — From the Pilgrims of the Sun. 

At length upon the brink of heaven they stood; 
There lingering, forward on the air they leand 
With hearts elate, to take one parting look 
Of nature from its source, and converse hold 
Of all its wonders. Not upon the Sun, 
But on the halo of bright golden air 
That fringes it they leand, and talk'd so long, 
That from contiguous worlds they were beheld 
And wonder'd at as beams of living light. 

There all the motions of the ambient spheres 

Were well observed, explaind, and understood. 

All save the mould of that mysterious chain 

Which bound them to the sun — that, God himself, 

And he alone could comprehend or wield. — 

While thus they stood or lay (for to the eyes 

Of all, their posture seem'd these two between, 

Bent forward on the wind, in graceful guise, 

On which they seem'd to press, for their fair robes 

Were streaming far behind them), there pass'd by 

A most erratic wandering globe, that seem'd 

To run with troubled aimless fury on. 

The virgin, wondering, inquir'd the cause 

And nature of that roaming meteor world. 

When Cela answer'd thus : — " I can remember well 

When yon was such a world as that you left; 

A nursery of intellect, for those 

Where matter lives not.— Like these other worlds, 

It wheel' d upon its axle, and it swung 

With wide and rapid motion. But the time 

That God ordain'd for its existence run. 

Its uses in that beautiful creation, 

Where nought subsist in vain, remain'd no more! 



400 EXTRACTS IN BLANK VERSE. 

The saints and angels knew of it, and came 

In radiant files, with awful reverence, 

Unto the verge of heaven where we now stand, 

To see the downfal of a sentenc'd world. 

Think of the impetus that urges on 

These ponderous spheres, and judge of the event. 

Just in the middle of its swift career, 

The Almighty snapp'd the golden cord in twain 

That hung it to the heaven — Creation sobb'd! 

And a spontaneous shriek rang on the hills 

Of these celestial regions. Down amain 

Into the void the outcast world descended, 

Wheeling and thundering on ! Its troubled seas 

Were churn'd into a spray, and, whizzing, flurr'd 

Around it like a dew. — The mountain tops, 

And ponderous rocks, were off impetuous flung, 

And clatter'd down the steeps of night for ever. 

Away into the sunless starless void 

Rush'd the abandon'd world; and through its caves, 

And rifled channels, airs of chaos sung. 

The realms of night were troubled — for the stillness 

Which there from all eternity had reign'd 

Was rudely discompos'd; and moaning sounds 

Mix'd with a whistling howl, were heard afar 

By darkling spirits! still with stayless force, 

For years and ages, down the wastes of night 

Rolld the impetuous mass ! — of all its seas 

And supernces disencumber'd 

It boom'd along, till by the gathering speed, 

Its furnac'd mines and hills of walled sulphur 

Were blown into a flame. — When, meteor-like, 

Bursting away upon an arching track, 

Wide as the universe, again it scal'd 

The dusky regions. — Long the heavenly hosts 

Had deem'd the globe extinct — nor thought of it, 

Save as an instance of Almighty power: 

Judge of their wonder and astonishment, 

When far as heavenly eyes can see, they saw 

In yon blue void, that hideous world appear! 

Showering thin flame, and shining vapor forth 

O'er half the breadth of heaven!^ — The angels paus'd! 

And all the nations trembled at the view. 



EXTRACTS IN BLANK VERSJS. 401 

" But great is He who rules them! — He can turn 
And lead it all unliurtful through the spheres, 
Signals of pestilence, or wasting sword, 
That ravage and deface humanity. 

" The time will come, when, in like wise, the earth 
Shall be cut off from God's fair universe ; 

Its end fulfill'd But when that time shall be, 

From man, from saint, and angel is conceal'd." Hogg. 



Darkness. 

I had a dream, which was not all a dream. 

The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars 

Did wander darkling in the eternal space, 

Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth 

Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air; 

Morn came, and went, — and came, and brought no day, 

And men forgot their passions in the dread 

Of this their desolation; and all hearts 

Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light : 

And they did live by watchfires — and the thrones, 

The palaces of crowned kings — the huts, 

The habitations of all things that dwell, 

Were burn'd for beacons; the cities were consum'd, 

And men were gather'd round their blazing homes 

To look once more into each other's face; 

Happy were those who dwelt within the eye 

Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch: 

A fearful hope was all the world contain'd; 

Forests were set on fire — but hour by hour 

They fell and faded — and the crackling trunks 

Extinguish'd with a crash — and all was black. 

The brows of men by the despairing light 

Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits 

The flashes fell upon them; some lay down 

And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest 

Their chins upon their clinched hands, and smil'd; 

And others hurried to and fro, and fed 

Their funeral piles with fuel, and look'd up 

With mad disquietude on the dull sky, 

The pall of a past world ; and then again 



402 EXTRACTS IN BLANK VERSE. 

With curses cast them down upon the dust, 

And gnash' d their teeth and howl'd : the wild birds shriek'd, 

And, terrified, did flutter on the ground, 

And flap their useless wings ; the wildest brutes 

Came tame and tremulous: and vipers crawl'd 

And twin'd themselves among the multitude, 

Hissing, but stingless — they were slain for food : 

And War, which for a moment was no more, 

Did glut himself again; — a meal was bought 

With blood, and each sate sullenly apart 

Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left; 

All earth was but one thought — and that was death, 

Immediate and inglorious : and the pang 

Of famine fed upon all entrails — men 

Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh ; 

The meagre by the meagre were devour'd, 

Even dogs assaiTd their masters, all save one, 

And he was faithful to a corse, and kept 

The birds, and beasts, and famish'd men, at bay, 

Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead 

Lur'd their lank jaws ; himself sought out no food, 

But with a piteous and perpetual moan 

And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand 

Which answer'd not with a caress — he died. 

The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two 

Of an enormous city did survive, 

And they were enemies; they met beside 

The dying embers of an altar-place 

Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things 

For an unholy usage ; they rak'd up, 

And shivering scrap'd with their cold skeleton hands 

The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath 

Blew for a little life, and made a flame 

Which w r as a mockery; then they lifted up 

Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld 

Each other's aspects — saw, and shriek'd, and died — 

Even of their mutual hideousness they died, 

Unknowing who he was upon whose brow 

Famine had written Fiend. The world was void, 

The populous and the powerful was a lump, 

Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless — 

A lump of \leath — a chaos of hard clay. 



EXTRACTS IN BLANK VERSE. 403 

The rivers, lakes, and ocean, all stood still, 

And nothing stirr'd within their silent depths; 

Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea, 

And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropp'd 

They slept on the abyss without a surge — 

The waves were dead ; the tides were in their grave, 

The moon their mistress had expir'd before; 

The winds were witherd in the stagnant air, 

And the clouds perish 'd; Darkness had no need 

Of aid from them — she was the universe. Byron. 



Marcelia. 



It was a dreary place. The shallow brook 

That ran throughout the wood, there took a turn 

And widend : all its music died away, 

And in the place a silent eddy told, 

That there the stream grew deeper. There dark trees 

Funereal (cyprus, yew, and shadowy pine, 

And spicy cedar), cluster'd, and at night 

Shook from their melancholy branches sounds 

And sighs like death: 'twas strange, for through the day 

They stood quite motionless, and look'd, methought, 

Like monumental things, which the sad earth 

From its green bosom had cast out in pity, 

To mark a young girl's grave. The very leaves 

Disown'd their natural green, and took black 

And mournful hue; and the rough brier, stretching 

His straggling arms across the rivulet, 

Lay like an armed sentinel there, catching 

With his tenacious leaf, straws, witherd boughs, 

Moss that the banks had lost, coarse grasses which 

Swam with the current, and with these it hid 

The poor Marcelia's death-bed. — Never may net 

Of venturous fisher be cast in with hope, 

For not a fish abides there. The slim deer 

Snorts as he ruffles with his shorten d breath 

The brook, and panting flies the unholy place, 

And the white heifer lows and passes on; 

The foaming hound laps not, and winter birds 

Go higher up the stream. And yet I love 



404 EXTRACTS IN BLANK VERSE. 

To loiter there: and when the rising moon 

Flames down the avenue of pines, and looks 

Red and dilated through the evening mists, 

And chequer'd as the heavy branches sway 

To and fro with the wind, I stay to listen, 

And fancy to myself that a sad voice, 

Praying, comes moaning through the leaves, as 'twere 

For some misdeed. The story goes — that some 

Neglected girl (an orphan whom the world 

Frown'd upon) once stray'd thither, and 'twas thought 

Cast herself in the stream : you may have heard 

Of one Marcelia, poor Nolini's daughter, who 

Fell ill and came to want? — No! Oh she lov'd 

A wealthy man, who mark'd her not. He wed, 

And then the girl grew sick, and pin'd away, 

And drown'd herself for love. Procter. 



Crazy Kate. 

The common, overgrown with fern, and rough 
With prickly gorse, that, shapeless and deform'd, 
And dangerous to the touch, has yet its bloom, 
And decks itself with ornaments of gold, 
Yield no unpleasing ramble; there the turf 
Smells fresh, and, rich in odoriferous herbs 
And fungous fruits of earth, regales the sense 
With luxury of unexpected sweets. 

There often wanders one, whom better days 
Saw better clad, in cloak of satin trimm'd 
With lace, and hat with splendid riband bound. 
A serving maid was she, and fell in love 
With one who left her, went to sea, and died. 
Her fancy follow' d him through foaming waves 
To distant shores; and she would sit and weep 
At what a sailor suffers ; fancy too, 
Delusive most where warmest wishes are, 
Would oft anticipate his glad return, 
And dream of transports she was not to know. 
She heard the doleful tidings of his death — 
And never smil'd again! and now she roams 
The dreary waste; there spends the livelong day, 



EXTRACTS IN BLANK VERSE. 405 

And there, unless when chanty forbids, 

The livelong night. A tatter'd apron hides, 

Worn as a cloak, and hardly hides, a gown 

More tatter'd still; and both but ill conceal 

A bosom heav'd with never-ceasing sighs. 

She begs an idle pin of all she meets, 

And hoards them in her sleeve ; but needful food, 

Tho press'd with hunger oft, or comeUer clothes, 

Tho pinch'd with cold, asks never. — Kate is crazd. 

Coioper. 



The Speech of Belial dissuading from War. 

I should be much for open war, O peers! 

As not behind in hate, if what was urg'd 

Main reason to persuade immediate war 

Did not dissuade me most, and seem to cast 

Ominous conjecture on the whole success; 

When he, who most excels in fact of arms, 

In what he counsels, and in what excels, 

Mistrustful, grounds his courage on despair 

And utter dissolution, as the scope 

Of all his aim, after some dire revenge ! 

First, what revenge? The towers of Heaven are fill'd 

With armed watch, that render all access 

Impregnable: oft on the bordering deep 

Encamp their legions ; or, with obscure wing, 

Scout far and wide into the realm of night, 

Scorning surprise! or could we break our way 

By force, and at our heels all Hell should rise 

With blackest insurrection, to confound 

Heavens purest light! — yet our great enemy, 

All incorruptible, would on his throne 

Sit unpolluted; and the ethereal mould, 

Incapable of stain, would soon expel 

Her mischief, and purge off the baser fire, 

Victorious ! Thus repuls'd, our final hope 

Is flat despair! we must exasperate 

The almighty Victor to spend all his rage, — 

And that must end us ! that must be our cure, 

To be no more ! Sad cure ! for who would lose, 

Tho full of pain, this intellectual being — 



406 EXTRACTS IN BLANK VERSE. 

Those thoughts that wander through eternity — 

To perish rather! — swallow'd up and lost 

In the wide womb of uncreated night, 

Devoid of sense and motion? And who knows 

(Let this he good) whether our angry fo 

Can give it, or will ever? how he can, 

Is doubtful; that he never will, is sure. 

Will he, so wise, let loose at once his ire, 

Belike through impotence, or unaware, 

To give his enemies their wish, and end 

Them in his anger, whom his anger saves 

To punish endless? — Wherefore cease we then? 

Say they Avho counsel war; we are decreed, 

Reserv'd, and destin'd to eternal wo; 

Whatever doing, what can we suffer more, 

What can we suffer worse? Is this then worst, 

Thus sitting, thus consulting, thus in arms? 

What, when we fled amain, pursu'd, and struck 

With Heaven's afflicting thunder, and besought 

The deep to shelter us? this Hell then seem'd 

A refuge from those wounds ! or when we lay 

Chain'd on the burning lake ? that sure was worse ! 

What if the breath that kindled those grim fires, 

Awak'd, should blow them into sevenfold rage, 

And plunge us in the flames? or, from above, 

Should intermitted vengeance arm again 

His red right hand to plague us? What if all 

Her stores were open'd, and this firmament 

Of Hell should spout her cataracts of fire — 

Impendent horrors, threatening hideous fall — 

One day upon our heads; while we, perhaps, 

Designing or exhorting glorious war, 

Caught in a fiery tempest, shall be hurl'd 

Each on his rock transfix'd, the sport and prey 

Of racking whirlwinds ! — or for ever sunk 

Under yon boiling ocean, wrapp'd in chains, 

There to converse with everlasting groans, 

Unrespited, unpitied, unrepriev'd! 

Ages of hopeless end? this would be worse. 

War, therefore, open or concealed, alike 

My voice dissuades. Milton. 



EXTRACTS IN BLANK VERSE. 407 

Satan s Address to the Sun. 
O thou that, with surpassing glory crown'd, 
Look'st from thy sole dominion, like the god 
Of this new world! — at whose sight all the stars 
Hide their diminish'd heads! — to thee I call, 
But with no friendly voice, and add thy name, 

Sun! to tell thee how I hate thy beams, 
That bring to my remembrance from what state 

1 fell; how glorious once above thy sphere, 
Till pride, and worse ambition, threw me down, 
Waning in heaven against heavens matchless King! 
Ah! wherefore? He deserv'd no such return 
From me, whom he created what I was 

In that bright eminence; and with his good 

Upbraided none; nor was his service hard. 

What could be less than to afford him praise, 

The easiest recompence, and pay him thanks, 

How due! Yet all his good prov'd ill in me, 

And wrought but malice: lifted up so high, 

I scorn d subjection, and thought one step higher 

Would set me highest, and in a moment quit 

The debt immense of endless gratitude, 

So burdensome, still paying, still to owe ! — 

Forgetful what from him I still received; 

And understood not — that a grateful mind 

By owing owes not, but still pays, at once 

Indebted and discharg'd: what burden then? 

Oh, had his powerful destiny ordain'd 

Me some inferior angel, I had stood 

Then happy; no unbounded hope had rais'd 

Ambition. Yet, why not? some other power 

As great, might have aspir'd; and me, tho mean, 

Drawn to his part: but other powers as great 

Fell not, but stand unshaken; from within 

Or from without, to all temptations arm'd. 

Hadst thou the same free will and power to stand? 

Thou hadst. Whom hast thou then, or what, to accuse, 

But Heaven's free love, dealt equally to all? 

Be then his love accurs'd! since, love or hate, 

To me alike, it deals eternal wo! 

Nay, curs'd be thou ! since, against his, thy will 

Chose freely what it now so justly rues. 



408 EXTRACTS IN BLANK VERSE. 

Me miserable ! which way shall I fly- 
Infinite wrath, and infinite despair? 
Which way I fly is hell! myself am hell! 
And, in the lowest deep, a lower deep 
Still threatening to devour me, opens wide, 
To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven ! 
Oh, then, at last relent! Is there no place 
Left for repentance? none for pardon left? 
None left but by submission; and that word 
Disdain forbids me, and my dread of shame 
Among the spirits beneath, whom I seducd 
With other promises and other vaunts 
Than to submit, boasting I could subdue — 
The Omnipotent ! Ah me ! they little know 
How dearly I abide that boast so vain; 
Under what torments inwardly I groan, 
While they adore me on the throne of hell. 
With diadem and sceptre high advanc'd, 
The lower still I fall, only supreme 
In misery : such joy ambition finds ! 
But say I could repent, and could obtain, 
By act of grace, my former state — how soon 
Would height recall high thoughts ! how soon unsay 
What feign'd submission swore! Ease would recant 
Vows made in pain, as violent and void — 
For never can true reconcilement grow 
Where wounds of deadly hate have pierc'd so deep — 
Which would but lead me to a worse relapse 
And heavier fall: so should I purchase dear 
Short intermission, bought with double smart! 
This knows my punisher; therefore as far 
From granting, he — as I, from begging, peace! 
All hope excluded thus, behold, instead 
Of us outcast! exil'd! his new delight, 
Mankind, created, and for him this world. 
So, farewell hope ! and with hope, farewell fear ! 
Farewell remorse! all good to me is lost; 
Evil, be thou my good ! by thee, at least 
Divided empire with heaven's King I hold; 
By thee, and more than half perhaps will reign, 
As man ere long, and this new world, shall know! 

Milton. 



EXTRACTS IN BLANK VERSE. 409 

On Procrastination. 

Be wise to-day; 'tis madness to defer: 
Next day the fatal precedent will plead ; 
Thus on, till wisdom is push'd out of life. 
Procrastination is the thief of time. 
Year after year it steals, till all are fled; 
And, to the mercies of a moment, leaves 
The vast concerns of an eternal scene. 

Of man's miraculous mistakes, this bears 
The palm, " That all men are about to live:" 
For ever on*the brink of being born. 
All pay themselves the compliment to think, 
They, one day, shall not drivel ; and their pride 
On this reversion takes up ready praise ; 
At least their own; their future selves applauds: 
How excellent that life they ne'er will lead ! 
Time lodg'd in their own hands is folly's vails; 
That lodg'd in fate's, to wisdom they consign; 
The thing they cant but purpose, they postpone. 
'Tis not in folly, not to scorn a fool; 
And scarce in human wisdom to do more, 
All promise is poor dilatory man; 
And that through eveiy stage. When young, indeed, 
In full content, we sometimes nobly rest, 
Unanxious for ourselves; and only wish, 
As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise. 
At thirty, man suspects himself a fool ; 
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan ; 
At fifty, chides his infamous delay; 
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve; 
In all the magnanimity of thought, 
Resolves, and re-resolves, then dies the same. 

And why? Because he thinks himself immortal. 
All men think all men mortal, but themselves; 
Themselves, when some alarming shock of fate 
Strikes through their wounded hearts the sudden dread ; 
But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air, 
Soon close; where, past the shaft, no trace is found. 
As from the wing no scar the sky retains; 
The parted wave no furrow from the keel; 
So dies in human hearts the thought of death, 

N N 



410 EXTRACTS IN BLANK VERSE. 

Even with the tender tear which nature sheds 

O'er those we love, we drop it in their grave. Young. 



Celadon and Amelia. 

Tis listening fear, and dumb amazement all: 
When to the startled eye, the sudden glance 
Appears far south, eruptive through the cloud; 
And, following slower, in explosion vast, 
The thunder raises his tremendous voice! 
At first heard solemn, o'er the verge of heaven, 
The tempest growls; but, as it nearer comes 
And rolls its awful burden on the wind, 
The lightnings flash a larger curve, and more 
The noise astounds ; till, over head, a sheet 
Of livid flame discloses wide ; then shuts, 
And opens wider; shuts and opens still, 
Expansive, wrapping ether in a blaze: 
Follows the loosen'd, aggravated roar, 
Enlarging, deepening, mingling; peal on peal 
Crush'd horrible, convulsing heaven and earth. 
Guilt hears appal'd, with deeply troubled thought: 
And yet, not always on the guilty head 
Descends the fated flash. — Young Celadon 
And his Amelia were a matchless pair; 
With equal virtue form'd, and equal grace, 
The same; distinguish' d by their sex alone: 
Her's the mild lustre of the blooming morn, 
And his the radiance of the risen day. 

They lov'd; but, such their guileless passion was, 
As in the dawn of time informal the heart 
Of innocence, and undissembling truth. 
'Twas friendship, heighten' d by the mutual wish ; 
The enchanting hope, and sympathetic glow, 
Beam'd from the mutual eye. Devoting all 
To love, each was to each a dearer self; 
Supremely happy in the awaken'd power 
Of giving joy. Alone, amid the shades, 
Still in harmonious intercourse, they liv'd 
The rural day, and talk'd the flowing heart, 
Or sigh'd, and look'd unutterable things ! 



EXTRACTS IN BLANK VERSE. 41 1 

So pass'd tlieir life — a clear, united stream. 
By care unruffl'd; till, in evil hour, 
The tempest caught them on the tender walk, 
Heedless how far, and where its mazes stray'd ; 
While, with each other bless'd, creative love 
Still bade eternal Eden smile around. 
Presaging instant fate, her bosom heav'd 
Unwonted sighs ; and, stealing oft a look 
Towards the big gloom, on Celadon her eye 
Fell tearful, wetting her disordered cheek. 
In vain assuring love, and confidence 
In Heaven, repress'd her fear; it grew, and shook 
Her frame near dissolution. He perceiv'd 
The unequal conflict; and, as angels look 
On dying saints, his eyes compassion shed, 
With love illumin'd high. " Fear not," he said, 
" Sweet innocence ! thou stranger to offence 
And inward storm ! He, who yon skies involves 
In frowns of darkness, ever smiles on thee 
With kind regard. O'er thee the sacred shaft 
That wastes at midnight, or the undreaded hour 
Of noon, flies harmless ; and, that very voice, 
Which thunders terror through the guilty heart, 
With tongues of seraphs whispers peace to thine ! 
'Tis safety to be near thee sure, and thus 
To clasp perfection!" From his void embrace — 
Mysterious Heaven! that moment to the ground, 
A blacken'd corse, was struck the beauteous maid! 
But, who can paint the lover, as he stood 
Pierc'd by severe amazement, hating life, 
Speechless, and fix'd in all the death of wo? 
So, — faint resemblance! — on the marble tomb, 
The well-dissembled mourner, stooping stands, 
For ever silent, and for ever sad. Thomson. 



SPEECHES. 



Richmond encouraging his Soldiers. 
Thus far into the bowels of the land 
Have we march'd on without impediment. 
Richard, the bloody and devouring chief, 
Whose ravenous appetite has spoil'd your fields, 
Laid this rich country waste, and rudely cropp'd 

Its ripen'd hopes of fair posterity, 

Is now even in the centre of the isle. 

Thrice is he arm'd who hath his quarrel just; 

And he but naked, tho lock'd up in steel, 

Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted: 

The very weight of Richard's guilt shall crush him. 

Then let us on, my friends, and boldly face him. 

In peace, there's nothing so becomes a man, 

As mild behaviour and humanity; 

But when the blast of war blows in our ears, 

Let us be tigers, in our fierce deportment. 

For me, the ransom of my bold attempt, 

Shall be this body on the earth's cold face; 

But if we thrive, the glory of the action, 

The meanest soldier here shall share his part of. 

Advance your standards, draw your willing swords, 

Sound drums and trumpets, boldly and cheerfully; 

The word's " St. George, Richmond, and Victory!" 

Shakespeare. 



*++++*++*wn***w++t++++*++++ 



Marcellus Speech to the Mob. 
Wherefore rejoice that Csesar comes in triumph ? 
What conquests brings he home? 
What tributaries follow him to Rome, 
To grace in captive bonds his chariot- wheels ? 
You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless thing*! 



SPEECHES. 413 

Oh you hard hearts ! you cruel men of Rome ! 
Knew you not Pompey? many a time and oft 
Have you climb'd up to walls and battlements, 
To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops, 
Your infants in your arms, and there have sat 
The live-long day, with patient expectation, 
To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome ; 
And when you saw his chariot but appear, 
Have you not made a universal shout, 
That Tiber trembled underneath his banks 
To hear the replication of your sounds 
Made in his concave shores? 
And do you now put on your best attire? 
And do you now cull out a holiday? 
And do you now strew flowers in his way 
That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood? 

Begone 

Run to your houses, fall upon your knees, 

Pray to the gods to intermit the plagues 

That needs must light on this ingratitude. Shakespeare. 



Speech of Henry V. to his Soldiers at ike Siege of 
Harfleur. 

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more ; 

Or close the wall up with the English dead! 

In peace, there's nothing so becomes a man, 

As modest stillness and humility: 

But when the blast of war blows in our ears, 

Then, imitate the action of the tiger; 

Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, 

Disguise fair nature with hard-favor 'd rage; 

Then, lend the eye a terrible aspect ; 

Let it pry through the portage of the head, 

Like the brass cannon! 

Now, set the teeth, and stretch the nostril wide; 

Hold hard the breath; and bend up every spirit 

To its full height. Now, on, you noblest English ! 

Whose blood is fetch'd from fathers of war-proof; 

Fathers, that, like so many Alexanders, 

Have, in these parts, from morn till even fought, 



414 SPEECHES. 

And sheath'd their swords for lack of argument! 
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, 

Straining upon the start The game's a-foot! 

Follow your spirit : and, upon this charge, 
Cry, God for Harry, England, and St. George ! 

Shakespeare. 



<vwv>ww< w wvn//y>iv/<ww« 



Mark Antony s Oration. 
Friends, Romans, Countrymen! — lend me your ears. 
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. 
The evil that men do lives after them; 
The good is oft interred with their bones: 
So let it be with Caesar! — Noble Brutus 
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious — 
If it was so, it was a grievous fault; 
And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it! 
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest — 
For Brutus is an honorable man! 
So they are all, all! honorable men — 
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral. 

He was my friend, faithful and just to me — 
But Brutus says he was ambitious — 
And Brutus is an honorable man! 
He hath brought many captives home to Rome, 
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill: 
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious? 
When the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept. 
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff! — 
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious ; 
And Brutus is an honorable man! 
You all did see, that, on the Lupercal 
I thrice presented him a kingly crown ; 
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition? — 
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; 
And sure he is an honorable man! 
I speak, not to disprove what Brutus spoke ; 
But here I am to speak what I do know. 
You all did love him once ; not without cause : 
What cause withholds you then to mourn for him ? 
O judgment ! thou art fled to brutish beasts, 
And men have lost their reason ! — Bear with me ! 



SPEECHES. 415 

My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar; 
And I must pause till it come back to me! 
But yesterday the word of Caesar might 
Have stood against the world — now lies he there. 
And none so poor to do him reverence ! 

masters ! if I were dispos'd to stir 
Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage, 

1 should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong, 
Who, you all know are honorable men — 

I will not do them wrong: I rather choose 
To wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you, 
Than I will wrong such honorable men ! — 
But here's a parchment with the seal of Caesar — 
I found it in his closet — 'tis his will! 
Let but the commons hear this testament — 
Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read, 
And they will go and kiss dead Caesar s wounds, 
And dip their napkins in his sacred blood ; 
Yea, beg a hair of him for memory, 
And, dying, mention it within their wills, 
Bequeathing it as a rich legacy 
Unto their issue! 

If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. 
You all do know this mantle? I remember 
The first time ever Caesar put it on; 
'Twas on a summer's evening in his tent — 

That day he overcame the Nervii! 

Look! in this place ran Cassius' dagger through! — 

See what a rent the envious Casca made ! 

Through this — the well-beloved Brutus stabb'd! 
And as he pluck'd his cursed steel away, 

Mark how the blood of Caesar follow'd it ! 

As rushing out of doors to be resolv'd 

If Brutus so unkindly knock'd or no ; 

For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel! 

Judge, O ye gods, how dearly Caesar lov'd him! 

This, this was the unkindest cut of all ; 

For when the noble Caesar saw him stab ! — 

Ingratitude, more strong than traitor's arms, 

Quite vanquish'd him. Then burst his mighty heart; 

And, in his mantle muffling up his face, 

Even at the base of Pompey's statue— 



416 SPEECHES. 

Which all the while ran blood! Great Caesar fell! 
Oh what a fall was there, my countrymen! 
Then I, and you, and all of us, fell down ; 
Whilst bloody treason flourish'd over us! 
Oh, now you weep, and I perceive you feel 
The dint of pity : these are gracious drops ! 
Kind souls! what! weep you when you but behold 
Our Caesar's vesture wounded? — look you here! 

Here is himself — marr'd as you see, by traitors! 

Good friends ! sweet friends ! let me not stir you up 
To such a sudden flood of mutiny! 
They that have done this deed are honorable !— 
What private griefs they have, alas ! I know not, 
That made them do it: they are wise and honorable, 
And will, no doubt, with reason answer you. 
I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts: 
I am no orator as Brutus is; 
But, as you know me all, a plain blunt man, 
That loves his friend — and that they know full well — 
That gave me public leave to speak of him — 
For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, 
Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech, 
To stir men's blood: I only speak right on! 
I tell you that which you yourselves do know; 
Show you sweet Caesar's wounds, poor, poor, dumb 

mouths ! 
And bid them speak for me. But were I Brutus, 
And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony 
Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue 
In every wound of Caesar, that should move 
The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny! Shakespeare. 



Cassius against Ccesar. 

I cannot tell what you and other men 
Think of this life ; but for my single self, 
I had as lief not be, as live to be 
In awe of such a thing as I myself. 
I was born free as Caesar; so were you; 
We both have fed as well ; and we can both 
Endure the winter's cold as well as he. 
For once upon a raw and gusty day, 



SPEECHES. 417 

The troubled Tiber chafing with his shores, 

Caesar says to me, Dar'st thou, Cassius, now 

Leap in with me into this angry flood, 

And swim to yonder point? — Upon the word, 

Accoutred as I was, I plunged in, 

And bade him follow; so indeed he did. 

The torrent roar'd, and we did buffet it 

With lusty sinews; throwing it aside, 

And stemming it with hearts of controversy. 

But ere we could arrive the point propos'd, 

Csesar cried, Help me, Cassius, or I sink. 

I, as iEneas, our great ancestor, 

Did from the flames of Troy, upon his shoulder 

The old Anchises bear; so from the waves of Tiber 

Did I the tired Caesar: and this man 

Is now become a god; and Cassius is 

A wretched creature, and must bend his body, 

If Csesar carelessly but nod on him. 

He had a fever when he was in Spain, 

And when the fit was on him, I did mark 

How he did shake. 'Tis true, this god did shake ; 

His coward lips did from their color fly, 

And that same eye, whose bend does awe the world, 

Did lose its lustre: I did hear him groan; 

Ay, and that tongue of his, that bade the Romans 

Mark him, and write his speeches in their books, 

Alas! it cried — Give me some drink, Titinius — 

As a sick girl. Ye gods, it doth amaze me, 

A man of such a feeble temper, should 

So get the start of the majestic world, 

And bear the palm alone. 

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world 

Like a Colossus ! and we petty men 

Walk under his huge legs, and peep about, 

To find ourselves dishonorable graves. 

Men at some times are masters of their fates : 

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, 

But in ourselves, that we are underlings. 

Brutus — and Csesar — what should be in that Csesar? 

Why should that name be sounded more than yours ? 

Write them together; your's is as fair a name: 

Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well : 



418 SPEECHES. 

Weigh them, it is as heavy; conjure with them, 

Brutus will start a spirit as soon as Caesar! 

Now, in the name of all the gods at once, 

Upon what meat does this our Caesar feed, 

That he has grown so great? Age, thou art sham'd: 

Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods. 

When went there by an age, since the great flood, 

But it was fam'd with more than with one man? 

When could they say, till now, that talk'd of Rome, 

That her wide walls encompass'd but one man ? 

Oh! you and I have heard our father's say, 

There was a Brutus once, that would have brook'd 

The infernal devil to keep his state in Rome, 

As easily as a king. Shakespeare. 

Brutus s Harangue over the Dead Body of Lucretia. 

Thus, thus, my friends! fast as our breaking hearts 
Permitted utterance, we have told our story: 
And now, to say one word of the imposture, — 
The mask necessity has made we wear. 
When the ferocious malice of your king, — 
King do I call him ? — when the monster, Tarquin, 
Slew, as most of you may well remember, 
My father, Marcus, and my elder brother, 
Envying at once their virtues and their wealth, 
How could I hope a shelter from his power, 
But in the false face I have worn so long? 

Would you know why I summon'd you together? 
Ask ye what brings me here? Behold this dagger, 
Clotted with gore! Behold that frozen corse! 
See where the lost Lucretia sleeps in death! 
She was the mark and model of the time, 
The mould in which each female face was form'd, 
The very shrine and sacristy of virtue ! 

The worthiest of the worthy! not the nymph 
Who met old Numa in his hallow' d walks, 
And whisper'd in his ear her strains divine, 
Can I conceive beyond her! — the young choir 
Of vestal virgins bent to her ! — Such a mind 
Might have abash'd the boldest libertine, 
And turn'd desire to reverential love 



SPEECHES. 419 

And holiest affection! Oh, my countrymen! 

You all can witness when that she went forth 

It was a holiday in Rome; old age 

Forgot its crutch; labor its task; all ran; 

And mothers, turning to their daughters, cried, 

" There, there's Lucretia!" — Now look ye wheref.she lies, 

That beauteous flower, that innocent sweet rose, 

Tom up by ruthless violence — gone ! gone ! 

Say — would you seek instructions? would you seek 
What ye should do? — Ask ye yon conscious walls 
Which saw his poison'd brother, saw the incest 
Committed there, and they will cry, Revenge ! — 
Ask yon deserted street, where Tullia drove 
O'er her dead father's corse, 'twill cry, Revenge!— 
Ask yonder Senate-house, whose stones are purple 
With human blood, and it will cry, Revenge ! 
Go to the tomb where lies his murder 'd wife, 
And the poor queen, who lov'd him as her son, 
Their unappeased ghosts will shriek, Revenge! 
The temples of the gods, the all- viewing heaven, — 
The gods themselves, — shall justify the cry, 
And swell the general sound — Revenge! Revenge! 

Payne. 



Brutus on the Death of Ccesar. 

Romans, Countrymen, and Lovers! — hear me for my 

cause; and be silent that you may hear. Believe me for 

mine honor; and have respect to mine honor, that you 

may believe. Censure me in your wisdom ; and awake 

your senses, that you may the better judge. If there 

be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar's, to 
him I say, that Brutus's love to Csesar was no less than 
his. If, then, that Mend demand why Brutus rose against 
Caesar, this is my answer; not that I loved Caesar less, 
but that I loved Rome more. Had you rather Csesar 
were living, and die all slaves; than that Caesar were dead, 
to live all freemen? — As Caesar loved me, I weep for him; 
as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I 
honor him; but as he was ambitious, I slew him! There 
are tears for his love, joy for his fortune, honor for his 
valor, and death for his ambition! — Who's here so base, 



420 SPEECHES. 

that would be a bondman? if any, speak! for him have I 
offended. Who's here so rude, that would not be a Ro- 
man? if any, speak! for him have I offended. Who's here 
so vile, that will not love his country? if any, speak! for 
him have I offended. 1 pause for a reply 

None? then none have I offended! I have done no 
more to Caesar, than you should do to Brutus. The ques- 
tion of his death is enrolled in the Capitol; his glory not 
extenuated wherein he was worthy; nor his offences en- 
forced, for which he suffered death. 

Here comes his body, mourned by Mark Anthony; 
who, tho he had no hand in his death, shall receive the 
benefit of his dying, a place in the commonwealth; as, 

which of you shall not? — With this I depart that as 

I slew my best lover for the good of Rome, I have the 
same dagger for myself, when it shall please my country 
to need my death. Shakespeare. 



Holla to the Peruvians. 
My brave associates ! — partners of my toil, my feelings, 
and my fame! Can Rolla's words add vigor to the vir- 
tuous energies which inspire your hearts? — No; — you 
have judged as I have, the foulness of the crafty plea by 
which these bold invaders would delude you. — Your ge- 
nerous spirit has compared, as mine has, the* motives 
which, in a war like this, can animate their minds and 
ours. — They, by a strange frenzy driven, fight for power, 
for plunder, and extended rule; — we, for our country, 
our altars, and our homes. — They follow an adventurer 
whom they fear, and obey a power which they hate ; — we 
serve a monarch whom we love, — a God whom we adore. 
— Whene'er they move in anger, desolation tracks their 
progress ! — Whene'er they pause in amity, affliction mourns 
their friendship. — They boast, they come but to improve 
our state, enlarge our thoughts, and free us from the yoke 
of error ! — Yes — they — they will give enlightened freedom 
to our minds, who are themselves the slaves of passion, 
avarice, and pride ! — They offer us their protection — Yes, 
such protection as vultures give to lambs — covering and 
devouring them! — They call on us to barter all of good 
we have inherited and proved, for the desperate chance of 



SFJBHECHES. 421 

something better which they promise — Be our plain an- 
swer this i The throne we honor is the people's choice — 
the laws we reverence are our brave fathers' legacy — the 
faith we follow teaches us to live in bonds of charity with 
all mankind, and die with hope of bliss beyond the grave. 
— Tell your invaders this, and tell them too, we seek no 
change; and least of all, such change as they would bring 
us. Sheridan's Pizarro. 



Shyhck justifying his meditated Revenge. 

If it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. 
He hath disgraced me, and hindered me of half a million ! 
laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my 
nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated 
my enemies! And what's his reason? I am a Jew! 
Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands? organs, 
dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Is he not fed 
with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject 
to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed 
and cooled by the same summer and winter, as a Chris- 
tian is? If you stab us, do we not bleed? If you tickle 
us, do we not laugh ? If you poison us, do we not die ? 
and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are 
like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that ! If a 
Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. 
If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be 
by Christian example? Why, Revenge! The villany you 
tea*ch me I will execute; and it shall go hard, but I will 
better the instruction. Shakespeare. 



o o 



SOLILOQUIES. 



Cato on the Immortality of the Soul. 
It must be so — Plato, thou reason'st well! 
Else, whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, 
This longing after Immortality? - 
Or, whence this secret dread, and inward horror, 
Of falling into nought? Why shrinks the soul 
Back on herself, and startles at destruction? — 
'Tis the Divinity that stirs within us: 
'Tis Heaven itself, that points out — an hereafter, 
And intimates — Eternity to man. 
Eternity! — thou pleasing — dreadful thought! 
Through what variety of untried being, 
Through what new scenes and changes must we pass! 
The wide, the unbounded prospect lies before me; 
But shadows, clouds, and darkness, rest upon it. 
Here will I hold. If there's a Power above us — 
And that there is, all nature cries aloud 
Through all her works — He must delight in virtue; 
And that which he delights in, must be happy. 
But when? or where? This world — was made for Caesar. 
I'm weary of conjectures — this must end them. — 

\_Laying his hand on his sivord. 
Thus I am doubly arm'd. My death and life, 
My bane and antidote, are both before me. 
This — in a moment, brings me to an end; 
But this — informs me I shall never die ! 
The soul, secur'd in her existence, smiles 
At the drawn dagger, and defies its point, — 
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself 
Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years; 
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth, 
Unhurt amidst the war of elements, 
The wreck of matter, and the crash of worlds! 

Addison. 



SOLILOQUIES. 423 

Hamlet on his Mothers Marriage with his Uncle. 

Oh that this too too solid flesh would melt, 

Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew ! 

Or that the Everlasting had not fix d 

His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! 

How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable, 

Seem to me all the uses of this world ! 

Fie on't ! oh fie ! 'tis an un weeded garden 

That grows to seed: things rank and gross in nature 

Possess it merely. — That it should come to this ! — 

But two months dead! — nay, not so much; not two! — 

So excellent a king! that was, to this, 

Hyperion to a satyr: so loving to my mother, 

That he would not let the winds of heaven 

Visit her face too roughly. — Heaven and earth! 

Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him, 

As if increase of appetite had grown 

By what it fed on: yet, within a month, — 

Let me not think — Frailty, thy name is woman! 

A little month! or ere those shoes were old 

With which she follow'd my poor father's body, 

Like Niobe, all tears — why she, even she, 

Married mine uncle, my fathers brother, 

But no more like my father, than I to Hercules. — 

It is not, nor it cannot come to good. — 

But, break my heart, for I must hold my tongue. 

Shakespeare. 



Hamlet on the Immortality of the Soul. 

To be— -or not to be? — that is the question. — 

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer 

The stings and arrows of outrageous fortune, 

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, 

And, by opposing, end them? — To die— to sleep — 

No more !— and, by a sleep, to say we end 

The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks 

That flesh is heir to — 'tis a consummation 

Devoutly to be wish'd. To die — to sleep — 

To sleep? — perchance to dream! — ay, there's the rub!- 

For, in that sleep of death, what dreams may come, 



424 



SOLILOQUIES. 



When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, 

Must give us pause — There's the respect, 

That makes calamity of so long life. 

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, 

The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, 

The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay, 

The insolence of office, and the spurns 

That patient merit of the unworthy takes — 

When he himself might his quietus make, 

With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear, 

To groan and sweat under a weary life, 

But that the dread of something after death — 

That undiscover'd countiy, from whose bourne 

No traveler returns ! — puzzles the will ; 

And makes us rather bear those ills we have, 

Than fly to others that we know not of. 

Thus, conscience does make cowards of us all : 

And, thus, the native hue of resolution 

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; 

And enterprises of great pith and moment, 

With this regard, their currents turn awry, 

And lose the name of action ! Sfiakespeare. 



The King in Hamlet. 
Oh, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven! 
It hath the primal, eldest curse upon't — 

A brother's murder! Pray I cannot; 

Though inclination be as sharp as 'twill, 

My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent; 

And, like a man to double business bound, 

I stand in pause where I shall first begin, 

And both neglect. W T hat if this cursed hand 

Were thicker than itself with brother's blood? 

Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens 

To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy, 

But to confront the visage of offence ? 

And what's in prayer but this two-fold force ; 

To be forestalled ere we come to fall, 

Or pardon'd being down? Then I'll look up. 

My fault is past. — But oh ! what form of prayer 

Can serve my turn? Forgive me my foul murder! 



SOLILOQUIES. 425 

That cannot be, since I am still possess'd 

Of those effects for which I did the murder, 

My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen. 

May one be pardon'd and retain the offence? 

In the corrupted currents of this world 

Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice; 

And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself 

Buys out the law. But 'tis not so above: 

There is no shuffling; there the action lies 

In its true nature, and we ourselves compelled, 

Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults, 

To give in evidence. What then? what rests? 

Try what repentance can: what can it not? 

Yet what can it when one cannot repent? 

Oh wretched state ! oh bosom black as death ! 

Oh limed soul, that, struggling to be free, 

Art more engag'd! Help, angels! make essay! 

Bow, stubborn knees ! and heart, with strings of steel, 

Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe ! 

All, all may yet be well. Shakespeare. 



Macbeth to the Dagger. 
Go, bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready, 
She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed. 

\_Exit Servant. 
Is this a dagger which I see before me, 
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. — 
I have thee not ; and yet I see thee still. 
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible 
To feeling, as to sight? or art thou but 
A dagger of the mind? a false creation, 
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain? 
I see thee yet, in form as palpable 
As this which now I draw. — 
Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going; 
And such an instrument I was to use. 
Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses, 
Or else worth all the rest. — I see thee still; 
And, on the blade, and dudgeon, gouts of blood, 
Which was not so before — There's no such thing! — 
It is the bloody business, which informs 



426 SOLILOQUIES. 

Thus to mine eyes. — Now o'er one-half the world 

Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse 

The curtain d sleep: now witchcraft celebrates 

Pale Hecate's offerings; and wither'd Murder, 

(Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf, 

Whose howl's his watch) thus with his stealthy pace, 

Towards his design 

Moves like a ghost — Thou sure and firm set earth, 

Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear 

The very stones prate of my whereabout ; 

And take the present horror from the time, 

Which now suits with it. — While I threat, he lives — 

I go, and it is done; the bell invites me. [-4 bell rings. 

Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell 

That summons thee to heaven, or to hell. 

Shakespeare. 



Sir Peter Teazle on his Marriage. 
When an old bachelor marries a young wife, what is he 
to expect? 'Tis now above six months since my Lady 
Teazle made me the happiest of men, and I have been 
the most miserable dog ever since. We tifted a little 
going to church, and fairly quarreled before the bells were 
done ringing. I was more than once nearly choked with 
gall, during the honey-moon; and had fairly lost every 
satisfaction in life, before my friends had done wishing me 
joy. And yet I chose, with great caution, a girl bred 
wholly in the country, who had never known luxury be- 
yond one silk gown, or dissipation beyond the annual 
gala of a race-ball. Yet now she can play her part in all 
the little extravagant fopperies of the town, with as good 
a grace as if she had never seen a bush or a grass-plot out 
of Grosvenor-square. I am sneered at by all my acquaint- 
ance — paragraphed in the newspapers — she dissipates my 
fortune, and contradicts all my humors. And yet, the 
worst of it is, I doubt I love her, or I should never bear 
all this — but I am determined never to let her know it. — 
No, no, no ! Sheridan. 



DIALOGUES. 



The chief aim of the student of elocution, should be to 
enter into the spirit of his author: he should, as far as 
possible, render this habitual; for it is absolutely impos- 
sible to transmit the full force of any composition, unless 
we first feel it ourselves. Unless an individual's sensibility 
is naturally very strong, there is nothing in which he finds 
so much difficulty, as in giving a proper effect to the spirit 
of the original. It is, therefore, peculiarly necessary that 
the learner be practised in such pieces as are most dis- 
tinguished by feeling. For this purpose, Dramatic com- 
positions are eminently favorable; for the passions are 
there exhibited in their slightest gradation, and in their 
most overwhelming bursts. In addition to this, we may 
remark, that, in reading or reciting dialogues, the speakers, 
from being personally opposed, become more deeply in- 
terested in the subject, and imperceptibly attain the most 
admirable, and indeed, the most desirable of all the graces 
of elocution — the appearance of speaking from the im- 
7nediate and spontaneous impulse of the heart. 



From " The Fall of Jerusalem" 
The Walls of the City. 
Below — Titus, the Roman Army, &c. 
Above — Simon, John, Eleazar, Amariah, Jews. 
Titus. Men of Jerusalem ! whose hardy zeal 
And valiant patience in a cause less desperate 
Might force the fo to reverence and admire; 
To you thus speaks again the Queen of Earth, 
All- conquering Rome! whose kingdom is, where'er 
The sunshine beams on living men; beneath 
The shadow of whose throne the world reposes, 
And glories in being subjected to her, 



428 DIALOGUES. 

Even as 'tis subject to the immortal gods — 

To you, whose mad and mutinous revolt 

Hath harrow'd all your rich and pleasant land 

With fiery rapine; sunk your lofty cities 

To desolate heaps of monumental ashes ; 

Yet with that patience, which becomes the mighty, 

The endurance of the lion, that disdains 

The fo whose conquest bears no glory with it, 

Rome doth command you to lay down your arms, 

And bow the high front of your rebellion 

Even to the common level of obedience, 

That holds the rest of human kind. So doing, 

Ye cancel all the dark and guilty past: 

Silent Oblivion waits to wipe away 

The record of your madness and your crimes ; 

And in the stead of bloody vengeance claiming 

Her penal due of torture, chains, and death, 

Comes reconciling Mercy. 

John. Mercy! Roman! 
With what an humble and a modest truth 
Thou dost commend thy unpresuming virtues ! 
Ye want not testimonies to your mildness* — 
There, on yon lofty crosses, which surround us, 
Each with a Jewish corpse sublimely rotting 
On its most honorable eminence; 
There's none in all that long and ghastly avenue 
Whose wind-bleach'd bones depose not of thy mercy. 
We know our brethren, and we thank thee too; 
A courteous welcome hast thou given them, Roman! 
Who have abandon'd us in the hour of peril. 
They fled to 'scape their ruthless countrymen ; 
And, in good truth, their city of refuge seems 
To have found them fair gentle entertainment! 

Simon. Peace, John of Galilee ! and I will answer 
This purple-mantled Captain of the Gentiles; 
But in far other tone than he is wont 
To hear — about his silken couch of feasting — 
Amid his pamper'd parasites. — I speak to thee, 
Titus ! as warrior should accost a warrior. 

* Titus crucified round the city those who fled from the famine and 
the cruelty of the leaders within. Sometimes, according to Josephus, 
500 in a day suffered. 



DIALOGUES. 429 

The world thou boastest is Rome's slave ; the sun 

Rises and sets upon no realm but yours; 

Ye plant your giant foot in either ocean, 

And vaunt that that which ye o'erstride is Rome's! 

But think ye, that because the common earth 

Surfeits your pride with homage, that our land, 

Our separate, peculiar, sacred land, 

Portion'd and seal'd unto us by the God 

Who made the round world and the crystal heavens; 

A wondrous land, where nature's common course 

Is strange and out of use, so oft the Lord 

Invades it with miraculous intervention; 

Think ye this land shall be an Heathen heritage, 

An high place for your Moloch? Haughty Gentile! 

Even now ye walk on ruin and prodigy. 

The air ye breathe is heavy and o'ercharg'd 

With your dark gathering doom; and if our earth 

Do yet in its disdain endure the footing 

Of your arm'd legions, 'tis because it labors 

With throes of expectation, waiting 

The signal of your scattering. Lo ! the mountains 

Bend o'er you with their huge and lowering shadows, 

Ready to rush and overwhelm: the winds 

Do listen panting for the tardy presence 

Of Him that shall avenge. And there is scorn, 

Yea, there is laughter in our father's tombs, 

To think that Heathen conqueror doth aspire 

To lord it over God's Jerusalem ! 

Yea, in Hell's deep and desolate abode, 

Where dwell the perish'd kings, the chief of earth; 

They whose idolatrous warfare erst assail' d 

The Holy City, and the chosen people; 

They wait for thee, the associate of their hopes 

And fatal fall, to join their ruin'd conclave ! 

He whom the Red Sea 'whelm'd with all his host, 

Pharaoh, the Egyptian; and the kings of Canaan; 

The Philistine, the Dagon worshipper; 

Moab, and Edom, and fierce Amalek; 

And he of Babylon, whose multitudes, 

Even on the hills where gleam your myriad spears,* 

* The camp of Titus comprehended a space called, " The Assyrian's 
camp." 



430 DIALOGUES. 

In one brief night the invisible Angel swept 
With the dark, noiseless shadow of his wing, 
And morn beheld the fierce and riotous camp, 
One cold, and mute, and tombless cemetery, 
Sennacherib: all, all are risen, are mov'd; 
Yea, they take up the taunting song of welcome 
To him who, like themselves, hath madly warr'd 
'Gainst Zion's walls, and miserably fallen 
Before the avenging God of Israel! 

The Jews. Oh, holy Simon! Oh prophetic Simon! 
Lead thou, lead thou against the Gentile host, 
And we will ask no angel breath to blast them. 
The valor of her children soon shall scatter 
The spoiler from the rescued walls of Salem, 
Even till the wolves of Palestine are glutted 
With Roman carnage! 

Amariah. Blow, ye sacred priests, 
Your trumpets, as when Jericho of old 
Cast down its prostrate walls at Joshua's feet! 

Titus, Now, Mercy, to the winds! I cast thee off — 
My soul's forbidden luxury, I abjure thee! 
Thou much-abused attribute of gods 
And godlike men. 'Twas nature's final struggle; 
And now, whate'er thou art, thou unseen prompter! 
That in the secret chambers of my soul 
Darkly abidest, and hast still rebuk'd 
The soft compunctious weakness of mine heart, 
I here surrender thee myself. Now wield me 
Thine instrument of havoc and of horror, 
Thine to the extremest limits of revenge; 
Till not a single stone of yon proud city 
Remain; and even the vestiges of ruin 
Be utterly blotted from the face of the earth! Milman. 



From " The Fall of Jerusalem." 
Simon, John, Amariah, Jews, &c. 

Simon. Now, by the living God of Israel, John! 
Your silken slaves, your golden sandal'd men,— 
Your men ! I should have said, your girls of Galilee !— 
They will not soil their dainty hands with blood. 



DIALOGUES. 431 

Their myrrh-dew'd locks are all too smoothly curl'd 

To let the riotous and dishevelling airs 

Of battle violate their crisped neatness. 

Oh! their nice mincing* steps are all unfit 

To tread the red and slippery paths of war; 

Yet they can trip it lightly when they turn 

To fly!— 

John, Thou lying and injurious Pharisee! 
For every man of thine that in the trenches 
Hardly hath consented to lay down his life, 
Twice ten of mine have leap'd from off the walls, 
Grappling a Gentile by the shivering helm, 
And proudly died upon his dying fo. 
But tell thou me, thou only faithful Simon! 
Where are the men of Edom, whom we saw 
Stretching their amicable hands in parley, 
And quietly mingling with the unharming fo? 

Simon. Where are they? where the traitors meet, 
where all 
The foes of Simon and Jerusalem, 
In the everlasting fire ! I slew them, John ! — 
Thou saw'st my red hand glorious with their blood. 

John, False traitors ! in their very treachery false ! 
They would betray without their lord — In truth, 
Treason, like empire, brooks not rivalry. 

Simon. Now, by the bones of Abraham, our father, 
I do accuse thee here, false John of Galilee! 
Or, if the title please thee, John the Tyrant! 
Here, in our arm'd, embattled Sanhedrim, 
Thou art our fall's prime cause, and fatal origin! 
From thee, as from a foul and poisonous fount, 
Pour the black waters of calamity 
O'er Judah's land! God hates thee, man of Belial! 
And the destroying bolts that fall on thee 
From the insulted heavens, blast all around thee 
With spacious and unsparing desolation. 
Hear me, ye men of Israel! do ye wonder 
That all your baffled valor hath recoil'd 
From the fierce Gentile onset? that your walls 
Are prostrate, and your last hath scarce repell'd 
But now the flush'd invader? 'Tis from this — 
That the Holy City will not be defended 



432 DIALOGUES. 

By womanish men, and loose adulterers. 

Hear me, I say, this son of Gischala, 

This lustful tyrant ; hath he not defil'd 

Your daughters, in the open face of day 

Done deeds of shame, which midnight hath no darkness 

So deep as to conceal? It is his pride 

To offend high heaven with crimes before unknown 

Can these things be, and yet our favor'd arms 
Be clad with victory? Can the Lord of Israel 
For us, the scanty remnant of his worshippers, 
Neglect to vindicate his tainted shrine, 
His sanctuary profan'd, his outrag'd laws? 

John. Methinks, if Simon had but fought to-day 
As valiantly as Simon speaks, the fo 
Had never seen to-morrow's onset! — 

Simon. Brethren, 
Yet I demand your audience 

Jexvs. Hear him! hear 
The righteous Simon! 

Simon. Men of Israel! 
Why stand ye thus in wonder? where the root 
Is hollow, can the tree be sound? Man's deeds 
Are as man's doctrines; and who hopes for ought 
But wantonness and foul iniquity 
From that blaspheming and heretical sect, 
The serpent spawn of Sadoc, that corrupt 
The law of Moses and disdain the Prophets? 
That grossly do defraud the eternal soul 
Of its immortal heritage, and doom it 
To rot for ever with its kindred clay 
In the grave's deep unbroken prison-house? 
Yea, they dispeople with their infidel creed 
Heaven of its holy angels ; laugh to scorn 
That secret band of ministering spirits ; 
That therefore, in their indignation, stand 
Aloof, and gaze upon our gathering ruin 
With a contemptuous and pitiless scorn. 
They that were wont to range around our towers 
Their sunlight-wing'd battalia, and to war 
Upon our part with adamantine arms. 

John. Oh! impotent and miserable arguer! 
Will he that values not the stake as boldly 



DIALOGUES. 433 

Confront the peril as the man that feels 

This all upon the hazard? Men of Galilee, 

The cup of life hath sparkled to our lips, 

And we have drain d its tide of love and joy, 

Till our veins almost burst with overwrought rapture. 

And well we know, that generous cup, once dash'd, 

Shall never mantle more to the cold lips 

Of the earth-bound dead. And therefore do we fight 

For life as for a mistress, that being lost, 

Is lost for ever. To be what we are 

Is all we hope or pray for; think ye, then, 

That we shall tamely yield the contest up, 

And calmly acquiesce in our extinction? 

We know that there stands yawning at our feet 

The gulf, where dark Annihilation dwells 

With Solitude, her sister; and we fix 

Our stedfast footing on the perilous verge, 

And grapple to the last with the fierce fo 

That seek to plunge us down: and where's the strength 

That can subdue despair? — For the other charge, 

We look not Simon, to the sky, nor pray 

For sightless and impalpable messengers 

To spare us the proud peril of the war. 

Ourselves are our own angels! we implore not 

Or supernatural or spiritual aid; 

We have our own good arms, that God hath given us, 

And valiant hearts to wield those arms. 

Simon. Oh heavens! oh heavens! ye hear it, and 
endure it! 
Outwearied by the all-frequent blasphemy 
To an indignant patience : and the Just 
Still, still must suffer the enforc'd alliance 
Of men whose fellowship is death and ruin. 

John. Why, thou acknowledg'd Prince of Murderers ! 
Captain Assassin! Lord and Chief of Massacre ! 
That pourest blood like water, yet dost deem 
That thou canst wash the foul and scarlet stain 
From thy polluted soul, as easily 
As from thy dainty ever-dabbling hands, 
That wouldst appease with rite, and ordinance, 
And festival, and slavish ceremony, 
And prayers that weary even the stones thou kneel'st on, 



434 



DIALOGUES. 



The God whose image hourly thou effacest 
With mangling and remorseless steel! Tis well 
That graves are silent, and that dead men's souls 
Assert not the proud privilege thou wouldst give them! 
For, if they did, heaven's vaults would ring so loudly 
With imprecations gainst the righteous Simon, 
That they would pluck by force a plague upon us, 
To which the Roman, and the wasting famine, 
Were soft and healing mercies. 

Simon. Liar and slave ! 
There is no rich libation to the All-Just 
So welcome as the blood of renegades 

And traitors 

What, John of Galilee ! because my voice 
Is hoarse with speaking of thy crimes, dost scoff, 
And wag thy head at me, and answer laughter? 
Now, if thy veins run not pure gall, I'll broach 
Their tide, and prove if all my creed be false; 
If traitors' reeking blood smell not to heaven 
Like a sweet sacrifice. 

John. Why, ay! the victim 
Is bound to the horns of the altar! Strike, I say, 
He waits thee — Strike ! Milman. 



Brutus and Cassius. 

Cas. That you have wrong'd me, doth appear in this : 
You have condemn'd and noted Lucius Pella 
For taking bribes here of the Sardians; 
Wherein my letter (praying on his side, 
Because I knew the man) was slighted of. 

Bru. You wrong'd yourself to write in such a case. 

Cas. In such a time as this, it is not meet 
That every nice offence should bear its comment. 

Bru. Yet let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself 
Are much condemn'd to have an itching palm; 
To sell and mart your offices for gold 
To undeservers- 

Cas. I an itching palm ! 
You know that you are Brutus that speak this, 
Or, by the gods ! this speech were else your last. 




DIALOGUES. 435 

Bru. The name of Cassius honors this corruption, 
And chastisement doth therefore hide its head. 
Cas. Chastisement! 

Bru. Remember March, the Ides of March remember! 
Did not great Julius bleed for justices' sake? 
What ! shall one of us, 

That struck the foremost man of all this world, 
But for supporting robbers — shall we now 
Contaminate our fingers with base bribes ? 
And sell the mighty* space of our large honors 
For so much trash as may be grasped thus? — 
I had rather be a dog and bay the moon, 
Than such a Roman. 

Cas. Brutus, bay not me : 
I'll not endure it. You forget yourself, 
To hedge me in: I am a soldier 
Older in practice, abler than yourself 
To make conditions. 

Bru. Go to! you are not, Cassius. 
Cas. I am. 

Bru, I say you are not. 

Cas. Urge me no more ; I shall forget myself: 
Have mind upon your health: tempt me no farther. 
Bru. Away, slight man! 
Cas. Is't possible? 
Bru. Hear me, for I will speak. 
Must I give way and room to your rash choler? 
Shall I be frighted when a madman stares? 

Cas. O gods! ye gods! must I endure all this? 
Bru. All this ! ay, more. Fret till your proud heart 
break: 
Go, show your slaves how choleric you are, 
And make your bondmen tremble. Must I budge? 
Must I observe you? Must I stand and crouch 
Under your testy humor? By the gods ! 
You shall digest the venom of your spleen, 
Tho it do split you; for, from this day forth, 
I'll use you for my mirth, yea, for my laughter, 
When you are waspish. 
Cas. Is it come to this? 
Bru. You say, you are a better soldier: 
Let it appear so ; make your vaunting true, 



436 DIALOGUES. 

And it shall please me well. For mine own part, 
I shall be glad to learn of noble men. 

Cas. You wrong me every way — you wrong me, Bru- 
tus: I said an elder soldier, not a better. 
Did I say better? 

Bru. If you did, I care not. 

Cas. When Csesar liv'd, he durst not thus have mov'd 
me. 

Bru. Peace, peace; you durst not so have tempted him. 

Cas. I durst not! 

Bru. No. 

Cas. What! durst not tempt him? 

Bru. For your life you durst not. 

Cas. Do not presume too much upon my love, 
I may do that I shall be sorry for. 

Bru. You have done that you should be sorry for. 
There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats; 
For I am arm'd so strong in honesty, 
That they pass by me as the idle wind 
Which I respect not. I did send to you 
For certain sums of gold, which you denied me ; 
For I can raise no money by vile means: 
By heavens! I had rather coin my heart, 
And drop my blood for drachmas, than to wring 
From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash, 
By any indirection. I did send 
To you for gold to pay my legions, 
Which you denied me. Was that done like Cassius? 
Should I have answer'd Caius Cassius so? 
When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous, 
To lock such rascal counters from his friends, 
Be ready, gods ! with all your thunderbolts 
Dash him in pieces. 

Cas. I denied you not. 

Bru. You did. 

Cas. I did not: he was a fool 
That brought my answer back — Brutus hath riv'd my 

heart. 
A friend should bear a friend's infirmities; 
But Brutus makes mine greater than they are. 

Bru. I do not. Still you practise them on me. 

Cas. You love me not. 



DIALOGUES. 437 

Bru. I do not like your faults. 

Cas. A friendly eye could never see such faults. 
Bru. A flatterers would not, tho they did appear 
As huge as high Olympus. 

Cas. Come, Antony! and young Octavius, come! 
Revenge yourselves alone on Cassius: 
For Cassius is a- weary of the world — 
Hated by one he loves; brav'd by his brother; 
Check'd like a bondman; all his faults observed; 
Set in a note-book, learn' d and conn'd by rote, 
To cast into my teeth. Oh, I could weep 
My spirit from mine eyes! — There is my dagger, 
And here my naked breast — within, a heart 
Dearer than Plutus' mine, richer than gold: 
If that thou need'st a Roman's, take it forth: 
I that denied thee gold, will give my heart. 
Strike as thou didst at Csesar, for I know, 
When thou didst hate him worst, thou lov'dst him better 
Than ever thou lov'dst Cassius. 

Bru. Sheath your dagger. 
Be angry when you will, it shall have scope : 
Do what you will, dishonor shall be humor. 
O Cassius, you are yoked with a man 
That carries anger as the flint bears fire, 
Who, much enforced, shows a hasty spark, 
And straight is cold again. 

Cas. Hath Cassius liv'd 
To be but mirth and laughter to his Brutus, 
When grief and blood ill-temper'd vexeth him? 

Bru. When I spoke that, I was ill-temper'd too. 

Cas. Do you confess so much? Give me your hand. 

Bru. And my heart too. [Embracing. 

Cas. O Brutus! 

Bru. W T hat's the matter? 

Cas. Have you not love enough to bear with me, 
When that rash humor which my mother gave me 
Makes me forgetful? 

Bru. Yes, Cassius: and, from henceforth, 
When you are over-earnest with your Brutus, 
He'll think your mother chides, and leave you so. 



438 DIALOGUES. 

King Henry IV. Northumberland, and Hotspur. 

K. Henry. My blood hath been too cold and temperate. 
Unapt to stir at these indignities; 
And you have found me: for, accordingly, 
You tread upon my patience : but, be sure, 
I will from henceforth rather be myself, 
Mighty, and to be feared, than my condition, 
Which hath been smooth as oil, soft as young down, 
And therefore lost that title of respect, 
Which the proud soul ne'er pays, but to the proud. 

North. My good lord, 
Those prisoners in your highness' name demanded, 
Which Harry Percy here at Holmedon took, 
W r ere, as he says, not with such strength denied 
As was deliver'd to your majesty. 

Hot. My liege, I did deny no prisoners. 
But I remember, when the fight was done, 
When I was dry with rage and extreme toil, 
Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword, 
Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly dress'd, 
Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin, new reap'd, 
Show'd like a stubble-land at harvest-home. 
He was perfumed like a milliner: 
And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held 
A pouncet-box, which ever and anon 
He gave his nose; and still he smil'd, and talk'd; 
And, as the soldiers bore dead bodies by, 
He call'd them untaught knaves, unmannerly, 
To bring a slovenly, unhandsome corse 
Betwixt the wind and his nobility! 
With many holiday and lady terms 
He question'd me : amongst the rest, demanded 
My prisoners, in your majesty's behalf. 
I, then, all smarting, with my wounds being cold, 
To be so pester'd with a popinjay, 
Out of my grief and my impatience, 
Answer'd, neglectingly, I know not what; 
He should, or should not; for he made me ma 
To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet. 
And talk so like a waiting gentlewoman, 
Of guns, and drums, and wounds, (Heaven save 




DIALOGUES. 439 

And telling me the sovereign'st thing on earth 
Was spermaceti for an inward bruise ; 
And that it was great pity, so it was, 
This villanous saltpetre should be dug 
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth, 
Which many a good tall fellow has destroy'd 
So cowardly; and, but for these vile guns, 
He would himself have been a soldier ! 
This bald, unjointed chat of his, my lord, 
I answer'd, indirectly, as I said; 
And, I beseech you, let not this report 
Come current for an accusation, 
Betwixt my love and your high majesty. 

North. The circumstance consider d, good my lord, 
Whatever Harry Percy then had said 
To such a person, and in such a place, 
At such a time, with all the rest re-told; 
May reasonably die ; and never rise 
To do him wrong, or any way impeach 
What then he said, so he unsay it now. 

K. Henry. Why yet he doth deny his prisoners ; 
But with proviso and exception, 
That we, at our own charge, shall ransom straight 
His brother-in-law, the foolish Mortimer; 
Who, on my soul, hath wilfully betray'd 
The lives of those that he did lead to fight 
Against the great magician, old Glendower; 
Whose daughter, as we hear, the Earl of March 
Hath lately married. Shall our coffers, then, 
Be emptied, to redeem a traitor home? 
Shall we buy treason, and indent with fears, 
When they have lost and forfeited themselves? 
No; on the barren mountains let him starve; 
For I shall never hold that man my friend 
Whose tongue shall ask me for one penny cost 
To ransom home revolted Mortimer. 

Hot. Revolted Mortimer! 
He never did fall off, my sovereign liege, 
But by the chance of war: to prove that true, 
Needs but one tongue; for all those wounds, 
Those mouthed wounds, which valiantly he took, 
When on the gentle Severn's sedgy bank, 



440 DIALOGUES. 

In single opposition, hand to hand, 

He did confound the best part of an hour 

In changing hardiment with great Glendower: 

Three times they breath'd, and three times did they drink. 

Upon agreement, of sweet Severn's flood ; 

Who then affrighted with their bloody looks 

Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds, 

And hid his crisp head in the hollow bank, 

Blood-stained with these valiant combatants. 

Never did bare and rotten policy 

Color her working with such deadly wounds; 

Nor ever could the noble Mortimer 

Receive so many, and all willingly: 

Then let him not be slander'd with revolt. 

K. Henry* Thou dost belie him, Percy; thou beliest 
him; 
He never did encounter with Glendower; 
He durst as well have met the devil alone, 
As Owen Glendower for an enemy. 
Art not ashamed? But, sirrah, henceforth 
Let me not hear you speak of Mortimer. 
Send me your prisoners with the speediest means, 
Or you shall hear in such a kind from me 
As will displease you — My Lord Northumberland, 
We licence your departure with your son. 
— Send us your prisoners, or you'll hear of it. \Exit K. H. 

Hot I will not send them — I will after straight, 
And tell him so; for I will ease my heart, 
Altho it be with hazard of my head. 

North. What, drunk with choler? Stay, and pause 
awhile. 

Hot Not speak of Mortimer? 
Yes, I will speak of him ; and let my soul 
Want mercy, if I do not join with him: 
Yea, on his part, I'll empty all these veins, 
And shed my dear blood drop by drop i' the dust, 
But I will lift the down-trod Mortimer 
As high i' the air as this unthankful king, 
As this ingrate and canker'd Bolingbroke! 
He said, he would not ransom Mortimer; 
Forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer; 
But I will find him when he lies asleep. 



DIALOGUES. 441 

And in his ear I'll hollow Mortimer! 

Nay, I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak 

Nothing but Mortimer, and give it him, 

To keep his anger still in motion. 

North. My son, farewell! — No further go in this 
Than I by letters shall direct your course. 
When time is ripe (which will be suddenly) 
I'll steal to GlendoAver and Lord Mortimer; 
Where you and Douglas, and our powers at once 
(As I will fashion it) shall happily meet, 
To bear our fortunes in our own strong arms, 
Which now we hold at much uncertainty. 

Hot. Father, adieu! — Oh let the hours be short, 
Till fields, and blows, and groans, applaud our sport. 



Catds Senate. 

Cato. Fathers, we once again are met in council : 
Caesar's approach has summon'd us together, 
And Rome attends her fate from our resolves. 
How shall we treat this bold aspiring man? 
Success still follows him, and backs his crimes : 
Pharsalia gave him Rome: Egypt has since 
Receiv'd his yoke, and the whole Nile is Csesar's ! 
Why should I mention Juba's overthrow, 
And Scipio's death? Numidia's burning sands 
Still smoke with blood. 'Tis time we should decree 
Wliat course to take. Our fo advances on us, 
And envies us even Libya's sultry deserts. 
Fathers, pronounce your thoughts: are they still fix'd 
To hold it out and fight it to the last? 
Or are your hearts subdu'd at length, and wrought 
By time and ill success to a submission? 
Sempronius, speak. 

Semp. My voice is still for war. 
Gods! can a Roman senate long debate 
W T hich of the two to choose, slavery or death? 
No; let us rise at on«e, gird on our swords, 
And at the head of our remaining troops, 
Attack the fo, break through the thick array 
Of his throng'd legions, and charge home upon him. 




442 DIALOGUES. 

Perhaps some arm, more lucky than the rest, 

May reach his heart, and free the world from bondage. 

Rise, fathers, rise! 'tis Rome demands your help; 

Rise, and revenge her slaughter'd citizens, 

Or share their fate ! The corpse of half her senate 

Manure the fields of Thessaly, while we 

Sit here deliberating in cold debates 

If we should sacrifice our lives to honor, 

Or wear them out in servitude and chains. 

Rouse up, for shame ! Our brothers of Pharsalia 

Point at their wounds, and cry aloud — To battle ! 

Great Pompey's shade complains that we are slow, 

And Seipio's ghost walks unreveng'd amongst us! 

Cato. Let not a torrent of impetuous zeal 
Transport thee thus beyond the bounds of reason : 
True fortitude is seen in great exploits 
That justice warrants, and that wisdom guides : 
All else is towering frenzy and distraction. 
Are not the lives of those who draw the sword 
In Rome's defence, entrusted to our care? 
Should we thus lead them to a field of slaughter, 
Might not the impartial world with reason say, 
We lavish'd at our deaths the blood of thousands, 
To grace our fall, and make our ruin glorious ? 
Lucius, we next would know what's your opinion. 

Lucius. My thoughts, I must confess, are turn'd on 
peace. 
Already have our quarrels fill'd the world 
With widows, and with orphans; Scythia mourns 
Our guilty wars, and earth's remotest regions 
Lie half-unpeopled by the feuds of Rome : 
'Tis time to sheath the sword, and spare mankind. 
It is not Caesar, but the gods, my fathers, 
The gods declare against us, and repel 
Our vain attempts. To urge the fo to batt] 
(Prompted by blind revenge 
Were to refuse the awards 
And not to rest in heaven's determination. 
Already have we shown our love to Rome; 
Now let us show submission to the gods. 
We took up arms, not to revenge ourselves, 
But free the commonwealth ; when this end fail; 



DIALOGUES. 443 

Arms have no farther use: our country's cause, 

That drew our swords, now wrests them from our hands, 

And bids us not delight in Roman blood, 

Unprofitably shed; what men could do 

Is done already: heaven and earth will witness, 

If Rome must fall, that we are innocent. 

Semp. This smooth discourse, and mild behaviour, oft 

Conceal a traitor Something whispers me 

All is not right Cato, beware of Lucius. 

Cato. Let us appear nor rash nor diffident; 
Immoderate valor swells into a fault: 
And fear, admitted into public councils, 
Betrays like treason. Let us shun them both. 
Fathers, I cannot see that our affairs 
Are grown thus desperate : we have bulwarks round us : 
Within our walls are troops inur'd to toil 
In Afric's heats, and season'd to the sun; 
Numidia's spacious kingdom lies behind us, 
Ready to rise at its young Prince's call. 
While there is hope, do not distrust the gods; 
But wait at least till Caesar's near approach 
Force us to yield. 'Twill never be too late 
To sue for chains, and own a conqueror. 
Why should Rome fall a moment ere her time? 
No, let us draw her term of freedom out 
In its full length, and spin it to the last. 
So shall we gain still one day's liberty; 
And let me perish, but in Cato's judgment, 
A day, an hour, of virtuous liberty, 
Is worth a whole eternity in bondage. 
Enter Marcus. 

Marc, Fathers, this moment, as I watch'd the gate, 
Lodg'd on my post, a herald is arriv'd 
From Caesar's camp, and with him comes old Deciu9, 
The Roman knight: he carries in his looks 
Impatience, and demands to speak with Cato. 

Cato. By your permission, fathers, bid him enter, 
Deeius was once my friend, but other prospects 
Have loosd those ties, and bound him fast to Caesar. 
His message may determine our resolves. I 

ler Deeius. ^^^^ 

Dec. Caesar sends health to Cato ■ 



444 DIALOGUES. 

Cato. Could he send it 
To Cato's slaughter'd friends, it would be welcome. 
Are not your orders to address the Senate ? 

Dec. My business is with Cato; Csesar sees 
The straits to which you're driven; and, as he know* 
Cato's high worth, is anxious for your life. 

Cato. My life is grafted on the fate of Roxne. 
Would he save Cato, bid him spare his country. 
Tell your dictator this : and tell him, Cato 
Disdains a life which he has power to offer. 

Dec. Rome and her senators submit to Csesar; 
Her generals and her consuls are no more, 
Who check'd his conquests, and denied his triumphs: 
Why will not Cato be this Caesar's friend? 

Cato. Those very reasons thou hast urg'd forbid it, 

Dec. Cato, I've orders to expostulate, 
And reason with you, as from friend to friend. 
Think on the storm that gathers o'er your head, 
And threatens every hour to burst upon it; 
Still may you stand high in your country's honors, 
Do but comply, and make your peace with Csesar. 
Rome will rejoice, and cast its eyes on Cato, 
As on the second of mankind. 

Cato. No more: 
I must not think of life on such conditions. 

Dec. Csesar is well acquainted with your virtues, 
And therefore sets this value on your life : 
Let him but know the price of Cato's friendship, 
And name your terms. 

Cato. Bid him disband his legions, 
Restore the commonwealth to liberty, 
Submit his actions to the public censure, 
And stand the judgment of a Roman sena 
Bid him do this, and Cato is his friend. 

Dec. Cato, the world tall- loudh of yonv wisdom — 

Cato. Nay more, tho Cato's voice was ne'< employ'* 
To clear the guilty, aaruJ \ • varnish crimes. 
Myself will mount the rostru m in ; I favor, 
And strive to, gain his pardon from the peopl * 
Dec. A style like this becomes a conqueror. 

Cato. Decvus, a style like this become a 
Dec. What is! a Roman, that.w Csesar s 





DIALOGUES. 445 

Cato. Greater than Caesar: he's a friend to virtue. 

Dec. Consider, Cato, you're in Utica, 
And at the head of your own little senate ; 
You don't now thunder in the Capitol, 
With all the mouths of Rome to second you. 

Cato. Let him consider that, who drives us hither. 
'Tis Caesar's sword has made Rome's senate little, 
And thinn'd its ranks. Alas! thy dazzled eye 
Beholds this man in a false glaring light, 
Which conquest and success have thrown upon him; 
Didst thou but view him right, thou'dst see him black 
With murder, treason, sacrilege, and crimes, 
That strike my soul with horror but to name them. 
I know thou look'st on me as on a wretch 
Beset with ills, and cover'd with misfortunes; 
But, as I love my country, millions of worlds 
Should never buy me to be like that Caesar! 

Dec. Does Cato send this answer back to Csesar, 
For all his generous cares, and profFer'd friendship? 

Cato. His cares for me are insolent and vain: 
Presumptuous man! the gods take care of Cato. 
Would Caesar show the greatness of his soul, 
Bid him employ his care for these my friends, 
And make good use of his ill-gotten power, 
By sheltering men much better than himself. 

Dec. Your high unconquer'd heart makes you forget 
You are a man. You rush on your destruction: 
But I have done. When I relate hereafter 
The tale of this unhappy embassy, 
All Rome will be in tears. Addison, 



Coriolamis and Aufidius. 

Cor. I plainly, Tullus, by your looks perceive, 
You disapprove my conduct. 

Auf. I mean not to assail thee with the clamor 
Of loud reproaches, and the war of words; 
But, pride apart; and all that can pervert 
The light of steady reason, here to make 
A candid, fair proposal. 

Cor. Speak, I hear thee* 

Q Q 




446 DIALOGUES. 

Auf I need not tell thee, that I have performed 
My utmost promise. Thou hast been protected; 
Hast had thy amplest, most ambitious wish; 
Thy wounded pride is heal'd, thy dear revenge 
Completely sated; and, to crown thy fortune, 
At the same time, thy peace with Rome restor'd. 
Thou art no more a Volscian, but a Roman: 
Return, return; thy duty calls upon thee 
Still to protect the city thou hast sav'd; 
It still may be in danger from our arms : 
Retire: I will take care thou may'st with safety. 
Cor. With safety? — Heavens! — and think'st thou, 
Coriolanus 
Will stoop to thee for safety? — No! my safeguard 

Is in myself, a bosom void of fear. 

O, 'tis an act of cowardice and baseness, 
To seize the very time my hands are fetter'd 
By the strong chain of former obligation, 
The safe, sure moment to insult me. — Gods! 
Were I now free, as on that day I was 
When at Corioli I tam'd thy pride, 
This had not been. 

Auf. Thou speak'st the truth : it had not. 
Oh, for that time again! propitious gods, 
If you will bless me, grant it ! Know, for that, 
For that dear purpose, I have now propos'd 
Thou should'st return: I pray thee, Marcius, do it; 
And we shall meet again on nobler terms. 

Cor. Till I have clear'd my honor in your council, 
And prov'd before them all, to thy confusion, 
The falsehood of thy charge; as soon in battle 
I would before thee fly, and howl for mercy, 
As quit the station they've assign d me here, 

Auf. Thou canst not hope acquittal from the Volseians. 
Cor. I do: — Nay, more, expect their approbation, 
Their thanks. I will obtain them such a peace 
As thou durst never ask ; a perfect union 
Of their whole nation with imperial Rome, 
In all her privileges, all her rights; 
By the just gods, I will. — What would'fit thou more? 
Auf What would I more, proud Hi : Thin J 

would — 






DIALOGUES. 447 

Fire the curs'd forest, where these Roman wolves 
Haunt and infest their nobler neighbors round them; 
Extirpate from the bosom of this land 
A false, perfidious people, who, beneath 
The mask of freedom, are a combination 

Against the liberty of human kind, 

The genuine seed of outlaws and of robbers. 

Cor. The seed of gods 'Tis not for thee, vain boaster, — 

'Tis not for such as thou, — so often spar'd 

By her victorious sword, to speak of Rome, 

But with respect, and awful veneration. — 

Whatever her blots, whate'er her giddy factions, 

There is more virtue in one single year 

Of Roman story, than your Volscian annals 

Can boast through all their creeping, dark duration. 

Auf. I thank thy rage : — This full displays the traitor. 

Cor. Traitor! — How now?- 

Auf. Ay, traitor, Marcius. 

Cor. Marcius! 

Auf. Ay, Marcius, Caius Marcius: Dost thou think 
I'll grace thee with that robbery, thy stolen name 
Coriolanus, in Corioli? 

You lords, and heads o the state, perfidiously 
He has betray' d your business, and given up, 
For certain drops of salt, your city Rome, — 
I say, your city, — to his wife and mother; 
Breaking his oath and resolution, like 
A twist of rotten silk; never admitting 
Counsel o' the war: but at his nurse's tears 
He whin'd and roar'd away your victory; 
That pages blush'd at.Mm , and men of heart 
Look'd wondering at eac 

Cor. Hearst thou, Mai 

Auf. Name not the god, thou boy of tears. 

Cor. Measureless liar, thou hast made my heart 
Too great for what contains it. — Boy! — 
Cut me to pieces, Volscians; men and lads, 
Stain all your edges on me.— Boy! — 
If you have writ your annals true, 'tis there, 
y\e in a dovecot, I 
/olscian^ 
-Boy! — Bin 





448 DIALOGUES. 

Lest my rash hand should do a hasty deed 
My cooler thought forbids. 

Auf. I court 
The worst thy sword can do; while thou from me 
Hast nothing to expect, but sore destruction; 
Quit then this hostile camp : once more I tell thee, 
Thou art not here one single hour in safety. 

Cor. Oh, that I had thee in tbe field, 
With six Aufidiuses, or more, thy tribe, 
To use my lawful sword. Shakespeare, 



Norval and Glenalvon. 

Glen. His port I love : he's in a proper mood 
To chide the thunder, if at him it roar'd. [Aside. 

Has Norval seen the troops? 

Norv. The setting sun 
With yellow radiance lightend all the vale; 
And, as the warriors mov'd, each polish'd helm, 
Corslet, or spear, glanc'd back his gilded beams. 
The hill they climb'd; and, halting at its top, 
Of more than mortal size, towering they seem'd 
An host angelic clad in burning arms. 

Glen. Thou talk'st it well: no leader of our host 
In sounds more lofty talks of glorious war. 

Norv. If I should e'er acquire a leader's name, 
My speech will be less ardent. Novelty 
Now prompts my tongue, and youthful admiration 
Vents itself freely ; since no part is mine 
Of praise pertaining to the great in arms. 

Glen. You wrong yourself, brave sir: your martial 

Have rank'd you with the great. Bui mar] me, Nerval 
Lord Randolph's favor now exalts y oui youth 
Above his veterans of famous service. 
Let me, who know these soldiers, counsel you. 
Give them all honor: seem not to command; 
Else they will hardly " 
Which nor alliance pr 
Norv. Sir, I have ~ 
To hear and speak 




DIALOGUES. 449 

And, though I have been told that there are men 
Who borrow friendship's tongue to speak their scorn, 
Yet in such language I am little skill'd. 
Therefore I thank Glenalvon for his counsel, 
Although it sounded harshly. Why remind 
Me of my birth obscure? Why slur my power 
With such contemptuous terms? 

Glen. I did not mean 
To gall your pride, which now I see is great. 

Now. My pride! 

Glen. Suppress it, as you wish to prosper. 
Your pride's excessive. Yet, for Randolph's sake, 
I will not leave you to its rash direction. 
If thus you swell, and frown at high-born men, 
Will high-born men endure a shepherd's scorn? 

Now. A shepherd's scorn! 

Glen. Yes! if you presume 
To bend on soldiers these disdainful eyes, 
As if you took the measure of their minds, 
And said in secret, you're no match for me; 
What will become of you? 

Now. Hast thou no fears for thy presumptuous self? 

Glen. Ha! dost thou threaten me? 

Now. Didst thou not hear? 

Glen. Unwillingly I did: a nobler fo 
Had not been question'd thus; but such as thee 

Now. Whom dost thou think me? 

Glen. Norval. 

Now. So I am 

And who is Norval in Glenalvon's eyes? 

Glen. A peasant's son, a wandering beggar boy; 
At best no more, even if he speaks the truth. 

Now, jjalse^a s tj^jgrt, dost thou suspect my truth ? 

Glen. Thy truth! thou'rt all a lie; and false as hell 

Randolph. 

Now. If I were chain d, unarm'd, or bed-rid old. 
Perhaps I should revile; but, as I am, $. 

I have no tongue to rail. The humble Norval 
Is of a race who strive not but with deeds. fite 

«v\v valor, 
beneath my sword, 
I know thee well. 





450 DIALOGUES. 

Glen. Dost thou not know Glenalvon, born to command 
Ten thousand slaves like thee? 

Norv. Villain, no more. 
Draw and defend thy life. I did design 
To have defied thee in another cause; 
But heaven accelerates its vengeance on thee. 
Now for my own and Lady Randolph's wrongs. 

Lord Ran. \_Enters.~] Hold, I command you both. 
The man that stirs makes me his fo. 

Now. Another voice than thine 
That threat had vainly sounded, noble Randolph. 

Glen. Hear him, my lord, he's wondrous condescending! 
Mark the humility of Shepherd Norval! 

Now. Now you may scoff in safety. 

[Sheathes his sword. 

Lord Ran. Speak not thus, 
Taunting each other; but unfold to me 
The cause of quarrel: then I judge betwixt you. 

Now. Nay, my good Lord, though I revere you much, 
My cause I plead not, nor demand your judgment. 
I blush to speak, I will not, cannot speak 
The opprobrious words, that I from him have borne. 
To the liege lord of my dear native land 
I owe a subject's homage; but even him 
And his high arbitration — I'd reject. 
Within my bosom reigns another lord; 
Honor, sole judge and umpire of itself. 
If my free speech offend you, noble Randolph, 
Revoke your favors ; and let Norval go 
Hence as he came, alone, but not dishonor'd! 

Lord Ran. Thus far I'll mediate with impartial voice. 
The ancient fo of Caledonia's land 
Now waves his banner — o'er her frighted fields. 
Suspend your purpose, till your coi ltry's a BtaB^^ 
Repel the bold invader; then decide 
The private quarrel. 

Glen. I agree to this. 

Now. And I. [Exit Randolph. 

Glen. Norval, 
Let not our variance^ mar- the social hour; 
Nor wrong the hospitality of Randolph. 
Nor fiov 




DIALOGUES. 



451 



Shall stain my countenance. Smooth thou thy brow. 
Nor let our strife disturb the gentle dame. 

Now. Think not so lightly, sir, of my resentment: 
When we contend again, our strife is mortal. Home* 



Lochiel s Warning. 

Wizard. Lochiel ! Lochiel ! beware of the day 
When the Lowlands shall meet thee in battle array! 
For a field of the dead rushes red on my sight, 
And the clans of Culloden are scatter'd in fight: 
They rally, they bleed, for their kingdom and crown; 
Wo, wo to the riders that trample them down! 
Proud Cumberland prances, insulting the slain, 
And their hoof-beaten bosoms are trod to the plain. 
But hark ! through the fast-flashing lightning of war, 
What steed to the desert flies frantic and far? 
'Tis thine, oh Glenullin! whose bride shall await, 
Like a love-lighted watch-fire, all night at the gate. 
A steed comes at morning: no rider is there; 
But its bridle is red with the sign of despair. 
Weep, Albin! to death and captivity led! 
Oh weep! but thy tears cannot number the dead: 
For a merciless sword on Culloden shall wave, 
Culloden ! that reeks with the blood of the brave. 

Lochiel. Go, preach to the coward, thou death-telling 
seer! 
Or, if gory Culloden so dreadful appear, 
Draw, dotard, around thy old wavering sight, 
This mantle, to cover the phantoms of flight! 

Wizard. Ha! laugh'st thou, Lochiel, my vision to scorn? 
Proud bird of the mountain, thy plume shall be torn! 
Say, rush'd the bold eagle exultingly forth, 
From his home, in the dark-rolling clouds of the north? 
Lo! die death-shot of foemen outspeeding, he rode 
Companion! ess; bearing destruction abroad; 
But down Jet him stoop from his havoc on high! 
Ah! home let him speed — -for the spoiler is nigh* 
flames the far summit? Why shoot to the bli 

lent cast! 
drivvia 



452 



DIALOGUES. 



Oh, crested Lochiel! the peerless in might, 
Whose banners arise on the battlements' height, 
Heaven's fire is around thee, to blast and to bum; 
Return to thy dwelling! all lonely, return! 
For the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood, 
And a wild mother scream o'er her famishing brood. 

Lochieh False Wizard, avaunt! I have marshall'd my 
clan: 
Their swords are a thousand, their bosoms are one ! 
They are true to the last of their blood and their breath, 
And like reapers descend to the harvest of death. 
Then welcome be Cumberland's steed to the shock! 
Let him dash his proud foam like a wave on the rock! 
But wo to his kindred, and wo to his cause, 
When Albin her claymore indignantly draws ; 
When her bonnetted chieftains to victory crowd, 
Clanranald the dauntless, and Moray the proud; 
All plaided and plumed in their tartan array 

Wizard. Lochiel, Lochiel, beware of the day! 
For, dark and despairing, my sight I may seal, 
But man cannot cover what God would reveal: 
'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore, 
And coming events cast their shadows before. 
I tell thee, Culloden's dread echoes shall ring 
With the blood-hounds that bark for thy fugitive king. 
Lo! anointed by Heaven with the vials of wrath, 
Behold, where he flies on his desolate path! 
Now, in darkness and billows, he sweeps from my sight: 
Rise ! rise ! ye wild tempests, and cover his flight ! 
'Tis finish'd. Their thunders are hush'd on the moors; 
Culloden is lost, and my country deplores: 
But where is the iron-bound prisoner? Where? 
For the red eye of battle is shj^Jn despair. 
Say, mounts he tMl^eaii 

Like a limb from his country c in. < • • : r • ■ 

Ah no! for a darker 
The war-drui 



His death-bell i 

Yon sight, tl 

Life flutters eonvute'd, 

And his blo< 

Acem 



rcy, dispel 
"t to tell! 
ing limbs 
ostril in agony sv um 
blaze afc hi 






DIALOGUES. 453 

Where his heart shall be thrown, ere it ceases to beat. 

With the smoke of its ashes to poison the gale 

Lochiel, — Down, soothless insulter ! I trust not the tale : 
For never shall Albin a destiny meet, 
So black with dishonor, so foul with retreat. 
Though my perishing ranks should be strew'd in their gore, 
Like ocean-weeds heap'd on the surf-beaten shore, 
Lochiel, untainted by flight or by chains, 
While the kindling of life in his bosom remains, 
Shall victor exult, or in death be laid low, 
With his back to the field, and his feet to the fo! 
And leaving in battle no blot on his name, 
Look proudly to heaven from the death-bed of fame. 

Campbell* 



Priuli and Jqffier* 
Pri. No more! I'll hear no more ! Begone and leave me. 
Jqff. Not hear me! by my sufferings, but you shall! 

My lord, niy lord! I'm not that abject wrulcll 

You think me. Patience! where's the distance throws 

Me back so far, but I may boldly speak 

In right, tho proud oppression will not hear me! 

Pri. Have you not wrong'd me? 

Jaff. Could my nature e'er 
Have brook' d injustice, or the doing wrong, 
I need not now thus low have bent myself 
To gain a hearing from a cruel father. 
Wrong'd you! 

Pri. Yes, wrong'd me. In the nicest point, 
The honor of my house, you've done me wrong. 
When you first came home from travel, 
With such hopes as made you look'd on 
By all men's eyes a youth of expectation, 
Pleas'd with your seeming virtue, I receiv'd you : 
Courted and sought to raise you to your merits: 
My house, my table, nay, my fortune too, H^ 

My very self was yours ; you might have used me 
To your best service : Like 
I treated, trusted you, and tb 
When, in requital of my best < 
You treacherously practis'd to undo me : 




454 DIALOGUES. 

Seduc'd the weakness of my age's darling, 
My only child, and stole her from my bosom. 

Jaff. Tis to me you owe her; 
Childless you had been else, and in the grave 
Your name extinct; no more Priuli heard of. 
You may remember, scarce five years are past, 
Since in your brigantine you sail'd to see 
The Adriatic wedded by our Duke; 
And I was with you. Your unskilful pilot 
Dash'd us upon a rock; when to our boat 
You made for safety ; enter'd first yourself; 
The affrighted Belvidera, following next, 
As she stood trembling on the vessel's side, 
Was by a wave wash'd off into the deep ; 
When instantly I plung'd into the sea, 
And, buffeting the billows to her rescue, 
Redeem'd her life with half the loss of mine. 
Like a rich conquest, in one hand I bore her, 
And, with the other dash'd the saucy waves, 
That throng'd and pr£»ss'd to rob me of my prize. 
I brought her: gave her to your despairing arms: 
Indeed you thank'd me; but a nobler gratitude 

Rose in her soul; for from that hour she lov'd me, 

Till, for her life, she paid me with herself. 

Pri. You stole her from me, like a thief you stole her 

At dead of night; that cursed hour you chose 

To rifle me of all my heart held dear. 

May all your joys in her prove false like mine ; 

A sterile fortune, and a barren bed, 

Attend you both: continual discord, make 

Your days and nights bitter and grievous still: 

May the hard hand of a vexatious need 

Oppress and grind you; till 8 

The curse of disobedience all your poi 
Jaff, Half o 

Heaven hath already crown' 

With a young boy sweet as 1 th s beauty. 

May he live to prove more gentle than his grandsire^ 

And happier than his father ! 
Pri. No more. 
Jaff. Yes, all; and then — adieu for ever. 

There's not a wretch that lives on common char! 




DIALOGUES. 455 

But's happier than I ; for I have known 

The luscious sweets of plenty; every night 

Hath slept with soft content about my head, 

And never wak'd but to a joyful morning : 

Yet now must fall; like a full ear of corn, 

Whose blossom 'scap'd, yet's wither'd in the ripening. 

Pri. Home, and be humble; study to retrench: 
Discharge the lazy vermin of thy hall, 
Those pageants of thy folly; 
Reduce the glittering trappings of thy wife 
To humble weeds, fit for thy little state: 
Then to some suburb cottage both retire: 
Drudge to feed loathsome life ; get brats, and starve. 
Home, home, I say [Exit. 

Jaff. Yes, if my heart would let me — 
This proud, this swelling heart; home I would go, 
But that my doors are hateful to my eyes, 
Fill'd and damm'd up with gaping creditors. 
IVe not now fifty ducats in the world; 
Yet still I am in love, and pleas'd with ruin. 
Oh! Belvidera! — Oh! she is my wife — 
And we will bear our wayward fate together — 
But ne'er know comfort more. Otway. 



Pierre and Jaffier. 

Pier. My friend, good morrow. 
How fares the honest partner of my heart? 
What, melancholy! not a word to spare me! 

Jaff. I'm thinking, Pierre, how that starving quality, 
Call'd honesty, got footing in the world. 

Pier. Why, powerful villany first set it up, 
For its own ease and safety. Honest men 
ft easy cusl ions on which knaves 

en. Were all mankind villains, 

lawyers would want practice, 
uld kill his brother 
d be paid or hang'd for murder. 
Honesty! 'twas a cheat invented first, Hjt^^^ 

To bind the hands of bold deserving rogues, 
That fools and cowards might sit safe in power, 
And lord it uncontroll'd above their betters. 




456 DIALOGUES, 

Jaff. Then honesty is but a notion? 

Pier. Nothing else; 
Like wit, much talk'd of, not to be defin'd: 
He that pretends to most, too, has least share in't. 
'Tis a ragged virtue. Honesty! no more on t. 

Jaff. Sure thou art honest? 

Pier. So, indeed, men think me; 
But they are mistaken, Jaffier: I am a rogue 
As well as they; 

A fine, gay, bold-faced villain, as thou seest me. 
Tis true, I pay my debts when they're contracted ; 
I steal from no man; would not cut a throat 
To gain admission to a great man's purse, 
I'd not betray my friend 
To get his place or fortune; I scorn to flatter 
A blown-up fool above me, or crush the wretch beneath 

me; 
Yet, Jaffier, for all this I am a villain. 

Jaff. A villain! 

Pier. Yes, a most notorious villain; 
To see the sufferings of my fellow-creatures, 
And own myself a man; to see our senators 
Cheat the deluded people with a show 
Of liberty, which yet they ne'er must taste of. 
They say, by them, our hands are from fetters freey 
Yet whom they please they lay in basest bonds; 
Bring whom they please to infamy and sorrow; 
Drive us, like wrecks, down the rough tide of power. 
Whilst no hold's left to save us from destruction. 
All that bear this are villains, and I one, 
Not to rouse up at the great call of nature, 
And check the growth of these domestic spoilers, 
That make us slaves, and tell us, 'tis our cha 

Jaff. I think no safety can 1; 
And grieve, my friend, as much as tl to 1 ivy 
In such a wretched s+ate as this of Venice, 
Where all agree to spc d ; 

And villains fatten wit! s labors. 

Pier. We've neither safety, unity, nor peace. 
For the foundation's lost of common good; 
Justice is lame, as well as blind, amongst us; 
The laws (corrupted to their ends tha 





DIALOGUES. 457 

Serve but for instruments of some new tyranny, 
That every day starts up, to enslave us deeper. 
Now could this glorious cause but find out friends 
To do it right, oh, Jaffier! then might'st thou 
Not wear those seals of wo upon thy face ; 
The proud Priuli should be taught humanity, 
And learn to value such a son as thou art. 
I dare not speak, but my heart bleeds this moment 

Jaff. Curs'd be the cause, tho I thy friend be part ont: 
Let me partake the troubles of thy bosom, 
For I am used to misery, and perhaps 
May find a way to sweeten't to thy spirit. 

Pier. Too soon 'twill reach thy knowledge — 

Jaff. Then from thee 
Let it proceed. There's virtue in thy friendship, 
Would make the saddest tale of sorrow pleasing, 
Strengthen my constancy, and welcome ruin. 

Pier. Then thou art ruin'd! 

Jaff. That I long since knew; 
I and ill fortune have been long acquainted. 

Pier. I pass'd this very moment by thy doors, 
And found them guarded by a troop of villains; 
The sons of public rapine were destroying. 
They told me, by the sentence of the law, 
They had commission to seize all thy fortune: 
Nay more, Priuli's cruel hand had sign'd it. 
Here stood a ruffian with a horrid face, 
Lording it o'er a pile of massy plate, 
Tumbled into a heap for public sale; 
There was another, making villanous jests 
At thy undoing: he had ta'en possession 
Of all thy ancient, most domestic ornaments, 
Rich hangings intermix' d and wrought with gold: 
The very bed, which on thy wedding-night 
Reeeiv'd thee to the arms of Belvidera, 
The scene of all thy joys, was violated S^ 

By the coarse hands of filthy dungeon villains, 

^HHHBu^HiHi^HBnntt'! i 



faff. Now ; thank Heaven — 
Pier. Thank Heoven! for whai 
' : Thai m net worth a diJcat. 
Curse thy dull stars, and the w< 






458 DIALOGUES. 

Where brothers, friends, and fathers, all are false; 

Where there's no truth, no trust; where innocence 

Stoops under vile oppression, and vice lords it. 

Hadst thou but seen, as I did, how at last 

Thy beauteous Belvidera, like a wretch 

That's doom'd to banishment, came weeping forth, 

Shining through tears, like April suns in showers, 

That labor to o'ercome the cloud that loads them; 

Whilst two young virgins, on whose arms she lean'd, 

Kindly look'd up, and at her grief grew sad, 

As if they catch'd the sorrows that fell from her. 

Even the lewd rabble, that were gather'd round 

To see the sight, stood mute when they beheld her; 

Govern'd their roaring throats, and grumbled pity. 

I could have hugg'd the greasy rogues: they pleas'd me* 

Jaff. I thank thee for this story, from my soul; 
Since now I know the worst that can befall me. 
Ah, Pierre! I have a heart that could have borne 
The roughest wrong my fortune could have done me; 
But when I think what Belvidera feels, 
The bitterness her tender spirit tastes of, 
I own myself a coward : bear my weakness ; 
If, throwing thus my arms about thy neck, 
I play the boy, and blubber in thy bosom. 
Oh! I shall drown thee with my sorrows. 

Pier. Bum, 
First burn and level Venice to thy ruin. 
What! starve, like beggars' brats, in frosty weather, 
Under a hedge, and whine ourselves to death! 
Thou or thy cause shall never want assistance, 
Whilst I have blood or fortune fit to serve thee : 
Command my heart, thou'rt every way its master. 

Jaff. No, there's a secret pride in bravely dying. 

Pier. Rats die in holes and corners, dogs mad ; 

Man knows a braver remedy for sorrow: 
Revenge, the attribute of gods 
With their great image, on our natures. 
Consider well the cause, that calls upon thee: 
And, if thou'rt base enough, die then. - 

Thy Belvidera suffers; Belvidera! 
Die— What! be decently interr'd 
In a church-yard, and mingle thy brave dust 




DIALOGUES. 459 

With stinking rogues, that rot in winding-sheets, 
Surfeit-slain fools, the common dung of the soil! 

Jaff Oh! 

Pier. Well said, out with't, swear a little— 

Jaff. Swear! By sea and air; by earth, by heaven, and 
hell, 
I will revenge my Belvidera's tears. 
Hark thee, my friend — Priuli — is — a senator. 

Pier. A dog. 

Jaff. Agreed. 

Pier. Shoot him. 

Jaff. With all my heart. 
No more; where shall we meet at night? 

Pier. I'll tell thee: 
On the Rialto, every night at twelve, 
I take my evening's walk of meditation; 
There we two wall meet, and talk of precious 
Mischief — 

Jaff. Farewell. 

Pier. At twelve. 

Jaff. At any hour; my plagues 
Will keep me waking. \JExit Pierre* 

Tell me why, good Heaven! 
Thou mad'st me what I am, with all the spirit, 
Aspiring thoughts, and elegant desires, 
That fill the happiest men? Ah, rather, why 
Didst thou not form me sordid as my fate, 
Base-minded, dull, and fit to carry burthens? 
Why have I sense to know the curse that's on me? 
Is this just dealing, Nature? Otway. 



Lady Randolph and Douglas. 

L. Ran. My son! I heard a voice — 
Doug. The voice was mine. ^_ 

L. Ran. Didst thou complain aloud to Nature's ear, 
That thus in dusky shades, at midnight hours, 
By stealth the mother and the son should meet? 

Doug. No: on this happy day, this better birth-day, 
My thoughts and words are all of hope and joy. 
L. Ran. Sad fear and melancholy still divide 



460 DIALOGUES. 

The empire of my breast, with hope and joy. 
Now hear what I advise. 

Doug. First let me tell 
What may the tenor of your counsel change. 

L. jRan. My heart forebodes some evil ! 

Doug. 'Tis not good — 
At eve, unseen by Randolph and Glenalvon, 
The good old Norval, in the grove, o'erheard 
Their conversation: oft they mention'd me, 
With dreadful threatenings ; you they sometimes nam'd. 
'Twas strange, they said, a wonderful disco very; 
And ever and anon they vow'd revenge. 

L. Ran. Defend us, gracious God! we are betray'd! 
They have found out the secret of thy birth ; 
It must be so. That is the great discovery. 
Sir Malcolm's heir is come to claim his own ; 
And he will be reveng'd. Perhaps even now, 
Arm'd and prepar'd for murder, they but wait 
A darker, and more silent hour, to break 
Into the chamber, where they think thou sleep'st. 
This moment, this, Heaven hath ordain'd to save thee ! 
Fly to the camp, my son! 

Doug. And leave you here? 
No: to the castle let us go together, 
Call up the ancient servants of your house, 
Who in their youth did eat your father's bread; 
Then tell them loudly, that I am your son. 
If in the breasts of men, one spark remains 
Of sacred love, fidelity, or pity, — 
Some in your cause will arm : I ask but few, 
To drive those spoilers from my father's house. 

L. Ran. O Nature, Nature ! what can check thy 
force? 
Thou genuine offspring of the daring Douglas ! 
But rush not on destruction: save thyself, 
And I am safe. To me they mean no harm; 
Thy stay but risks thy precious life in vain. 
That winding path conducts thee to the river; 
Cross where thou seest a broad and beaten 
Which, running eastward, leads thee to th 
Instant demand admittance to Lord Dougla 
Show him these jewels, which his brother wore. 






DIALOGUES. 461 

Thy look, thy voice, will make him feel the truth, 
Which I, by certain proof, will soon confirm. 

Doug. I yield me and obey: but yet my heart 
Bleeds at this parting. Something bids me stay, 
And guard a mother's life. Oft have I read 
Of wondrous deeds, by one bold hand achiev'd. 
Our foes are two; no more; let me go forth, 
And see if any shield can guard Glenalvon. 

Z. Ran. If thou regard'st thy mother, or rever'st 
Thy father's memory, think of this no more. 
One thing I have to say before we part: 
Long wert thou lost; and thou art found, my child, 
In a most fearful season. War and battle 
I have great cause to dread. Too well I see 
Which way the current of thy temper sets ; 
To-day I've found thee. Oh ! my long lost hope ! 
If thou to giddy valor giv'st the rein, 
To-morrow I may lose my son for ever. 
The love of thee, before thou saw'st the light, 
Sustain'd my life, when thy brave father fell. 
If thou shalt fall, I have nor love nor hope 
In this waste world! My son, remember me! 

Doug. What shall I say? how can I give you 
comfort? 
The God of battles of my life dispose, 
As may be best for you ! for whose dear sake, 
I will not bear myself as I resolv'd. 
But yet consider, as no vulgar name 
That which I boast, it sounds 'mongst martial men: 
How will inglorious caution suit my claim? 
The post of fate, unshrinking, I maintain. 
My country's foes must witness who I am; 
On the invaders' heads I'll prove my birth, 
Till friends and foes confess the genuine strain* 
If in this strife I fall, blame not your son, 
Who, if he lives not honor'd, must not live. 

L. Ran. I will not utter what my bosom feels. 
j well I love that valor which I warn. 

rell, my son! my counsels are but vain; H 

And as high Heaven hath will'cl it, all must be. 

Home. 




462 DIALOGUES, 

Lady Townly and Lady Grace. 

Lady T. Oh, My dear Lady Grace! how could you 
leave me so unmercifully alone all this while? 

Lady G. I thought my Lord had been with you. 

Lady T. Why, yes — and therefore I wanted your relief; 
for he has been in such a fluster here — 

Lady G. Bless me! for what? 

Lady T. Only our usual breakfast; we have each of 
us had our dish of matrimonial comfort this morning — we 
have been charming company. 

Lady G. I am mighty glad of it; sure it must be a 
vast happiness when man and wife can give themselves the 
same turn of conversation? 

Lady T. Oh, the prettiest thing in the world. 

Lady G. Now I should be afraid, that where two people 
are every day together, so, they must often be in want 
of something to talk upon. 

Lady T. Oh, my dear, you are the most mistaken in 
the world. Married people have things to talk of, child, 
that never enter into the imagination of others. — Why 
here's my Lord and I, now, we have been married above 
two short years, you know, and we have already eight 
or ten things constantly in bank, that, whenever we want 
company, we can take up any one of them for two hours 
together, and the subject never the flatter; nay, if we have 
occasion for it, it will be as fresh next day too, as it was 
the first hour it entertained us. 

Lady G. Certainly that must be vastly pretty. 

Lady T. Oh, there s no life like it! Why, t'other day, 
for example, when you dined abroad, my Lord and I, 
after a pretty cheerful tete-a-tete meal, sat us down by the 
fire-side, in an easy, indolent, pick- tooth way, for about a 
quarter of an hour, as if we had not thought of one 
another's being in the room. At last, stretching himself 

and yawning — My dear, says he, aw you came 

home very late last night 'Twas but just turner 

two, says I. 1 was in bed aw 

he. So you are every night, says I We 

I am amazed you can sit up so late. — How can you be 

amazed, says I, at a thing that happens so often? 

Upon which we entered into a conversation : and though 



DIALOGUES* 463 

this is a point that has entertained us above fifty times 
already, we always find so many pretty new things to say 
upon it, that I believe in my soul it will last as long as we live. 

Lady G. But pray, in such sort of family dialogues 
(though extremely well for passing the time), doesn't there 
now and then enter some little witty sort of bitterness? 

Lady T. Oh yes! which does not amiss at all. A 
smart repartee, with a zest of recrimination at the head 
of it, makes the prettiest sherbet. Ay, ay, if we did not 
mix a little of the acid with it, a matrimonial society would 
be so luscious, that nothing but an old liquorish prude 
would be able to bear it. 

Lady G. Well, certainly, you have the most elegant 
taste. 

Lady T. Though, to tell you the truth, my dear, I ra- 
ther think we squeez'd a little too much lemon into it this 

bout ; for it grew so sour at last, that I think 1 almost 

told him he was a fool and he again -talked some- 
thing oddly of turning me out of doors. 

Lady G. Oh ! have a care of that. 

Lady T. Nay, if he should, I may thank my own wise 
father for it. 

Lady G. How so! 

Lady T. Why, when my good Lord first opened his 
honorable trenches before me, my unaccountable papa, 
in whose hands I then was, gave me up at discretion. 

Lady G. How do you mean? 

Lady T. He said, the wives of this age were come to 
that pass, that he would not desire even his own daughter 
should be trusted with pin-money; so that my whole train 
of separate inclinations are left entirely at the mercy of a 
husband's odd humours. 

Lady G. Why, that, indeed, is enough to make a wo- 
man of spirit look about her. 

Lady T, Nay, but to be serious, my dear, what would 
you really have a woman do in my case ? 

Lady G. Why, if I had a sober husband, as you have, 
the happiest wife in the world, by 
being as sober as he. 

Lady T. Oh, you wicked thing! how can you teaze 
one at this rate, when you know he is so very sober, that 
(except giving me money) there is not one thing in the 



464 DIALOGUES. 

world he can do to please me? And I, at the same time, 
partly by nature, and partly perhaps by keeping the best 
company, do with my soul love almost every thing he hates. 
I doat upon assemblies; my heart bounds at a ball; and, 
at an opera — I expire. Then I love play to distraction ; 
cards enchant me — and dice put me out of my little wits. 
— Dear, dear hazard! — Oh what a flow of spirits it gives 
one! — Do you never play at hazard, child? 

Lady G. Oh, never! I don't think it sits well upon 
women: there's something so masculine, so much the air 
of a rake in it. You see how it makes the men swear and 
curse ; and when a woman is thrown into the same passion 
— why — 

Lady T. That's very true; one is a little put to it, 
sometimes not to make use of the same words to express it. 

Lady G. Well, and, upon ill luck, pray what words 
are you really forced to make use of? 

Lady T. Why, upon a very hard case, indeed, when a 
sad wrong word is rising just to one's tongue's end, I give 
a great gulp and swallow it. 

Lady G. Well — and is it not enough to make you 
forswear play as long as you live? 

Lady T. O yes : I have forsworn it. 

Lady G. Seriously? 

Lady T. Solemnly a thousand times, but then one is 
constantly forsworn. 

Lady G. And how can you answer that? 

Lady T. My dear, what we say when we are losers, 
we look upon to be no more binding than a lover's oath, 
or a great man's promise. But I beg pardon, child; I 
should not lead you so far into the world; you are a prude, 
and design to live soberly? 

Lady G. Why, I confess my nature and my education 
do in a good degree incline me that way. 

Lady T. Well, how a woman of spirit (for you don't 
want that, child) can dream of living soberly, is to me in- 
conceivable; for you will marry, I suppose? 

Lady G. I can't tell but I may. 

Lady T. And won't you live in town ? 

Lady G. Half the year I should like it very well 

Lady T. My stars! and you would really live in Lon- 
don half the year, to be sober in it? 

Lady G. Why not! 



DIALOGUES. 465 

Lady T. Why, can't you as well go and be sober in 
the country? 

Lady G. So I would t'other half year. 

Lady T. And pray, what comfortable scheme of life 
would you form now for your summer and winter sober 
entertainments ? 

Lady G. A scheme that I think might very well con- 
tent us. 

Lady T. Oh, of all things let's hear it. 

Lady G. Why, in summer, I could pass my leisure 
hours in riding, reading, walking by a canal, or sitting at 
the end of it under a green tree; in dressing, dining, chat- 
ting with an agreeable friend; perhaps hearing a little 
music, taking a dish of tea, or a game at cards — soberly; 
managing my family, looking into its accounts, playing 
with my children, if I had any; or in a thousand other 
innocent amusements — soberly; and possibly, by these 
means, I might induce my husband to be as sober as myself. 

Lady T. Well, my dear, thou art an astonishing crea- 
ture! for sure, such primitive antediluvian notions of life, 
have not been in any head this thousand years — Under a 
great tree! ha! ha! ha! — But I beg we may have the 
sober town scheme too — for I am charmed with the 
country one. 

Lady G. You shall, and I'll try to stick to my sobriety 
there too. 

Lady T. Well, though I am sure it will give me the 
vapors, I must hear it. 

Lady G. W T hy, then, for fear of your fainting, Madam, 
I will first so far come into the fashion, that I would never 
be dressed out of it — but still it should be soberly; for I 
can't think it any disgrace to a woman of my private for- 
tune not to wear her lace as fine as the wedding suit of a 
first dutchess; though there is one extravagance I would 
venture to come up to. 

Lady T, Ay, now for it 

Lady G. I would every day be as clean as a bride. 

Lady T. Why, the men say that's a great step to be 

one -Well, now you are dress'd, pray lets see to 

what purpose? 

Lady G. I would visit — that is, my real friends ; but as 
little for form as possible. 1 would go to court; some- 



466 DIALOGUES. 

times to an assembly; nay, play at quadrille — soberly. I 
would see all good plays; and, because 'tis the fashion, 
now and then go to an opera; but I would not expire there 
— for fear I should never go again. And lastly, I can't 
say, but for curiosity, if I liked my company, I might be 
drawn in once to a masquerade; and this, I think, is as 
far as any woman can go soberly. 

Lady T. Well, if it had not been for the last piece of 
sobriety, I was just going to call for some surfeit water. 

Lady G. Why, don't you think, with the farther aid of 
breakfasting, dining, taking the air, supping, sleeping, 
(not to say a word of devotion,) the four-and-twenty 
hours might roll over in a tolerable manner? 

Lady T. Tolerable! deplorable! Why, child, all 

you propose, is but to endure life ; now, I want to enjoy it. 

Goldsmith. 



Patent and Dowlas. 

Pat Walk in, Sir; your servant, Sir, your servant — 
have you any particular business with me? 

Dow. Yes, Sir, my friends have lately discover'd that 
I have a genius for the stage. 

Pat. Oh, you would be a player, would you, Sir? — 
pray, Sir, did you ever play? 

Dow. No, Sir, but I flatter myself — 

Pat. I hope not, Sir; flattering one's-self is the very 
worst of hypocrisy. 

Dow. You'll excuse me, Sir. 

Pat. Ay, Sir, if you'll excuse me for not flattering 
you I always speak my mind. 

Dow. I dare say you will like my manner, Sir. 

Pat. No manner of doubt, Sir-— I dare say I shall — 
pray, Sir, with which of the ladies are you in love? 

Dow. In love, Sir! — ladies! [Looking round. 

Pat. Ay, Sir, ladies — Miss Comedy or Dame Tragedy? 

Dotv. I'm vastly fond of Tragedy, Sir. 

Pat. Very well, Sir; and where is your fort? 

Dow. Sir? 

Pat. I say, Sir, what is your department? 

Dow. Department? — Do you mean my lodging, Sir? 

Pat. Your lodgings, Sir? — no, not I; — ha, ha, ha, I 



DIALOGUES. 467 

should be glad to know what department you would wish 
to possess in the tragic walk — the sighing lover, the fu- 
rious hero, or the sly assassin. 

Dow. Sir, I would like to play King Richard the Third. 

Pat. An excellent character indeed — a very good char- 
acter; and I dare say you will play it vastly well, Sir. 

Dow. I hope you'll have no reason to complain, Sir. 

Pat. I hope not. Well, Sir, have you got any favorite 
passage ready? 

Dow. I have it all by heart, Sir. 

Pat. You have, Sir, have you? — I shall be glad to 
hear you. 

Dow. Hem — hem — hem — [ Clearing his throat. 

What! will the aspiring blood of Lancaster 
Sink in the ground — I thought it would have mounted. 
See how my sword weeps for the poor king's death ; 
Oh! may such purple tears be always shed 
For those who wish the downfall of our house ; 
If there be any spark of life yet remaining, 
Down, down to hell, and say I sent thee thither, 
I that have neither pity, love, nor fear. 

Pat. Hold, Sir, hold — in pity hold, za, za, za, Sir — 
Sir — why, Sir, 'tis not like humanity. You wont find 
me so great a barbarian as Richard; — you said he had 
neither pity, love, nor fear, — now Sir, you will find that 
I am possessed of all these feelings for you at present, — 
I pity your conceit, I love to speak my mind; and-— I fear 
you'll never make a player. 

Dow. Do you think so, Sir? 

Pat. Do you think so, Sir? — Yes, I know so, Sir! — 
now, Sir, only look at yourself — your two legs kissing as 
if they had fallen in love with one another; — and your 
arms dingle dangle, like the fins of a dying turtle ! {mimics 
hi?n~\ 'pon my soul, Sir, 'twill never do, — pray, Sir, are 
you of any profession? 

Dow. Yes, Sir, a linen-draper! 

Pat. A linen-draper! an excellent business; a very 
good business — you'll get more by that than by playing, 
—you had better mind your thrumbs and your shop — and 
don't pester me any more with your Richard and your — 
za, za, za,— -this is a genius! — plague upon such geniuses 
I say. Carey. 



P. .■' 



COMIC EXTRACTS. 



Laic. 

Law is law — law is law ; and as in such and so forth, 
and hereby, and aforesaid, provided always, nevertheless, 
notwithstanding. Law is like a country dance, people 
are led up and down in it till they are tired. Law is like 
a book of surgery, there are a great many desperate cases 
in it. It is also like physic, they that take least of it are 
best off. Law is like a homely gentlewoman, very well 
to follow. Law is also like a scolding wife, very bad when 
it follows us. Law is like a new fashion, people are be- 
witched to get into it; it is also like bad weather, most 
people are glad when they get out of it. 

We shall now mention a cause, called " Bullum versus 
Boatum:" it was a cause that came before me. The 
cause was as follows. 

There were two farmers; farmer A. and farmer B. 
Farmer A. was seized or possessed of a bull; farmer B. 
was seized or possessed of a ferry-boat. Now, the owner 
of the ferry-boat, having made his boat fast to a post on 
shore, with a piece of hay, twisted rope-fashion, or, as we 
say, vulgo vocato, a hay-band. After he had made his boat 
fast to a post on shore, as it was very natural for a hungry 
man to do, he went up town to dinner ; farmer A.'s bull, 
as it was very natural for a hungry bull to do, came down 
town to look for a dinner; and, observing, discovering, 
seeing, and spying out, some turnips in the bottom of 
the ferry-boat, the bull scrambled into the ferry-boat: he 
ate up the turnips, and, to make an ena of his meal, fell to 
work upon the hay-band: the boat, being eaten from its 
moorings, floated down the river, with the bull in il 
struck against a rock; beat a hole in the bott :! » 

boat, and tossed the bull overboard : whereupon 1 ie 

of the bull brought his action against the b* n inning 

away with the bull; the ovflner of the boat brought his ac? 



COMIC EXTRACTS. 469 

tion against the bull, for running away with the boat: 
And this notice of trial was given, Bullum versus Boatum, 
Boatum versus Bullum. 

Now the Counsel for the bull began with saying, " My 
Lord, and you Gentlemen of the Jury, we are counsel in 
this cause for the bull. We are indicted for running away 
with the boat. Now, my Lord, we have heard of running 
horses, but never of running bulls before. Now, my Lord, 
the bull could no more run away with the boat, than a 
man in a coach may be said to run away with the horses ; 
therefore, my Lord, how can we punish what is not pun- 
ishable? How can we eat what is not eatable? Or how 
can we drink what is not drinkable? Or, as the law says, 
how can we think on what is not thinkable? Therefore, 
my Lord, as we are counsel in this cause for the bull, if 
the jury should bring the bull in guilty, the jury would be 
guilty of a bull." 

The counsel for the boat observed, that the bull should 
be nonsuited, because, in his declaration, he had not 
specified what color he was of; for, thus wisely, and thus 
learnedly, spoke the counsel — " My Lord, if the bull was 
of no color, he must be of some color; and, if he was 
not of any color, what color could the bull be of?" I over- 
ruled this motion myself, by observing the bull was a 
white bull, and that white is no color: besides, as I told 
mfy brethren, they should not trouble their heads to talk of 
color in the law, for the law can color any thing. This 
cause being afterwards left to a reference, upon the award, 
both bull and boat were acquitted, it being proved, that 
the tide of the river carried them both away; upon which I 
gave it as my opinion, that, as the tide of the river car- 
ried both bull and boat away, both bull and boat had a 
good action against the water-bailiff. 

My opinion being taken, an action was issued, and, 
upon the traverse, this point of law arose, how, wherefore, 
and whether, why, when, and what, whatsoever, whereas, 
and whereby, as the boat was not a compos mentis evi- 
dence, how could an oath be administered? That point 
was soon settled, by Boatum's attorney declaring, that, 
for his client, he would swear any tiling. 

The water -bailiff's charter was then read, taken out 

the original record, in true law Latin; which set forth, 
s s 



m 



4/0 COMIC EXTRACTS. 

in their declaration, that they were carried away either by 
the tide of flood, or the tide of ebb. The charter of the 
water-bailiff was as follows: "Aquce bailiffi est magis- 
tratus in choisi, super omnibus jishibus qui habuerunt 
Jinnos et scalos, claws, shells, et talos, qui swimmare i?i 
freshibus, vel saltibus riveris, lakos, pondis, cayialibus, et 
ivell-boats; sive oysteri, prawni, whitini, shrimpi, turbutus 
solus;" that is, not turbots alone, but turbots and soals 
both together. But now comes the nicety of the law ; the 
law is as nice as a new-laid egg, and not to be understood 
by addle-headed people. Bullum and Boatum mentioned 
both ebb and flood, to avoid quibbling; but, it being 
proved, that they were carried away neither by the tide of 
flood, nor by the tide of ebb, but exactly upon the top of 
high water, they were nonsuited ; but such was the lenity 
of the court, that, upon their paying all costs, they were 
allowed to begin again, de novo. Steven % 



The JFarmers Wife, and the Gascon, 
At Neufchatel, in France, where they prepare 
Cheeses that set us longing to eat mites, 
There dwelt a farmer's wife, fam'd for her rare 
Skill in these small quadrangular delights. 
Where they were made, they sold for the immense 
Price of three sous a-piece. 
But as salt water made their charms increase, 
In England the fixd rate was eighteenpence. 

This damsel had to help her in the farm, 
To milk her cows and feed her hogs, 
A Gascon peasant, with a sturdy arm, 
For digging, or for carrying logs, 
But in his noddle, weak as any baby, 

In fact a gaby, 
And such a glutton, when you came to feed him, 
That Wantly's Dragon, who " ate barns and churches," 
As if they were geese and turkies, 
(Vide the Ballad) scarcely could exceed him. 
One morn she had prepar'd a monstrous bowl 

Of cream like nectar, 
And would not go to church (good careful soul!) 
Till she had left it safe with a protector; 



COMIC EXTRACTS. 471 

So she gave strict injunctions to the Gascon 
To watch it while his mistress was to mass gone. 
Watch it he did — he never took his eyes off, 
But lick'd his upper, then his under lip, 
And doubled up his fist to drive the flies off, 
Begrudging them the smallest sip, 

Which if they got, 
Like my Lord Salisbury, he heav'd a sigh, 
And cried, " Oh happy, happy fly, 
How I do envy you, your lot!" 

Each moment did his appetite grow stronger; 

His bowels yearn'd; 
At length he could not bear it any longer; 
But on all sides, his looks he turn'd, 
And finding that the coast was clear, he quaff'd 
The whole up at a draught. 

Scudding from church, the farmer's wife 

Flew to the dairy; 
But stood aghast, and could not, for her life 
One sentence mutter, 
Until she muster'd breath enough to utter 

" Holy St. Mary!" 
And shortly with a face of scarlet, 
The vixen (for she was a vixen) flew 

Upon the varlet, 
Asking the when, and where, and how, and who 
Had gulp'd her cream, nor left an atom? 
To which, he gave — not separate replies, 
But, with a look of excellent digestion, 
One answer made to every question, 

"The flies!" 
" The flies! you rogue! the flies, you guttling dog! 
Behold, your whiskers still are cover'd thickly; 
Thief! — villain ! — liar ! — gormandizer ! — hog ! 
Ill make you tell another story quickly !" 
So out she bouncd, and brought, with loud alarms, 

Two stout gens-d'armes, 
Who bore him to the judge — a little prig, 

With angry bottle-nose, 

Like a red cabbage rose, 
While lots of white ones flourish'd on his wig! 
Looking at once, both stem and wise, 



472 COMIC EXTRACTS. 

He turn'd to the delinquent, 

And 'gan to question him, and catechise, 

As to which way the drink went? 

Still the same dogged answers rise, 

" The flies, my Lord — the flies, the flies!" 

u Pshaw!" quoth the judge, half peevish and half pompous, 

" Why, you're a non compos! 

You should have watch 'd the bowl, as she desir'd, 

And kill'd the flies, you stupid clown." — 

<• What! is it lawful, then," the dolt inquir'd, 

" To kill the flies in this here town?" 

" The man's an ass ! — a pretty question this ! 

Lawful? you booby! to be sure it is. 

You've my authority, where'er you meet them, 

To kill the rogues, and, if you like it, eat them." 

" Zooks!" cried the rustic, " I'm right glad to hear it. 

Constable, catch that thief! may I go hang 

If yonder blue bottle (I know his face) 

Isn't the very leader of the gang 

That stole the cream; — let me come near it." 

This said, he started from his place, 

And aiming one of his sledge-hammer blows 

At a large fly upon the judge's nose, 

The luckless blue bottle he crush'd, 

And gratified a double grudge; 

For the same catapult completely smash 'd 

The bottle-nose belonging to the judge. New Man, Mag, 



Jenkins and the Smuggler, 
Cold was the wind, and dark the night, 
When Samuel Jenkins, call'd by some 
The Reverend (tho I doubt bis right), 
Reach'd Yarmouth's town, indued to come 
By ardor in the cause of Zion, 
And hous'd him at the golden lion. 
His chamber held another bed, 
But, as it was untenanted, 
Our hero, without fear or doubt, 
Undress'd, and put the candle out; 
And, Morpheus, making haste to drop his 
Drowsiest soporific poppies, 



COMIC EXTRACTS. 473 

Sleep soon o'ertook the weary elf, 
Who snor'd like — nothing but himself. 
The night was pretty far advanc'd, 
When a stray smuggler, as it chanc'd, 
Was, by the yawning Betty, led 
To the aforesaid empty bed. 
'Tis plain, that, since his own bassoon 
Did not awake him with its tune, 
Sam could not hear his neighbor, 
Who very leisurely undress'd, 
Put out the light, retir'd to rest, 
And, weary with his labor, 
Form'd a duet with nose sonoms, 
Altho it sounded like a chorus. 
— The witching time of night is near — 
Hark! 'tis the hollow midnight-bell, 
Whose echoes, fraught with solemn fear, 
Far o'er the land and ocean swell. 
The sentry, on his lonely post, 
Starts, and bethinks him of a ghost, 
Lists eager for the distant sound 
Of comrades marching to the round, 
And bends athwart the gloom his eye 
The glimmer of their arms to spy. 
While many a startled nymph awaking, 
Counts the long chime so dull and dread, 
Fancies she sees the curtains shaking, 
Draws underneath the clothes her head, 
Feels a cold shudder o'er her creep, 
Attempts to pray, and shrinks to sleep ! 
Altho our missionary woke 
Just at this moment in a shiver, 
'Twas not the clock's appalling stroke 
That put his limbs in such a quiver — 
The blankets on his bed were two, 
So far from being thick and new, 
That he could well have borne a dozen ; 
No wonder, that with such a store, 
When his first heavy sleep was o'er, 
The poor incumbent woke half frozen! 
" Since Betty has forgot the clothes," 
Quoth Sam (confound her stupid head), 



4/4 COMIC EXTRACTS. 

" I'll just make free to borrow those 
That lie upon the empty bed :" 
So up he jump'd, too cold and raw 
To be punctilious in his work, 
Grasp'd the whole covering at a claw, 
Off-stripp'd it with a single jerk, 
f And was retreating with his prey, 
When, to his horror and dismay, 
His ears were almost split asunder 
By a " Hallo r as loud as thunder! 
As Belzebub on all occasions, 
Was present in his lucubrations, 
He took for granted, that to-night 
The rogue had come to wreak his spite, 
And stood transfix'd, afraid to breathe, 
With trembling lips and clattering teeth ! 
But at last, with desperate shout, 
Cried, " Satan, Avaunt! I've found thee out!" 
Meanwhile, the smuggler, who had shouted, 
At finding all the blankets gone, 
Tho for a little while he doubted 
The cause of the phenomenon, 
Soon as he heard Sam's exclamation, 
Concluded, without hesitation, 
'Twas an exciseman, come to seize 
His contraband commodities; 
Wherefore, within his fist collecting 
His vigor and resentment too, 
And by the voice his aim directing, 
Since every thing was hid from view, 
He launch'd a more than mortal blow, 
Intending to conclude the matter, 
Which, whizzing on its work of wo, 
Fell with a desolating clatter, 
Just where our Missionary bore his 
Two front teeth, or Incisores! 
This made Jenkins fiercer burn, 
To give his fo a due return, 
And punish him for what the brute did, 
Who thus his front teeth had uprooted! 
Rearing, with this intent, his fist, 
Altho the smugglers face it miss'd, 




COMIC EXTRACTS, 475 

It met his ear with such a rap, 

He thought it was a thunder-clap, 

Especially, as from the crash 

His eye- balls gave a sudden flash! 

Jenkins, meanwhile, with clamor dire, 

Vociferated — -" Thieves!" and "Fire!" 

Host, hostess, men, and maids, rush'd in, 

Astounded by his fearful din, 

While many more prepar'd to follow 

With lights and buckets, hoop and hollo! — ■ 

His fo, who saw how matters lay, 

Slipp'd on his clothes, and slipp'd away. Anon. 

The Ladies 9 Petition to Dr. Moyes. 
Dear Doctor! let it not transpire, 
How much your lectures we admire; 
How at your eloquence we wonder, 
When you explain the cause of thunder, 
Of lightning, and of electricity, 
With so much plainness and simplicity: 
The origin of rocks and mountains, 
Of seas and rivers, lakes and fountains; 
Of rain and hail, and frost and snow, 
And all the winds and storms that blow: 
Besides a hundred wonders more, 
Of which we never heard before. 

But now, dear Doctor! not to flatter, 
There is a most important matter, — 
A matter which you never touch on, — 
A matter which our thoughts run much on ; 
A subject, if we right conjecture, 
Which well deserves a long, long lecture, 
Which all the Ladies would approve, — 
The natural history of Love. 
O list' to our united voice, 
Deny us not, dear Doctor Moyes! 
Tell us, why our poor tender hearts 
So willingly admit Love's darts: 
Teach us the marks of Love's beginning; 
What is it makes a beau so winning; 
What makes us think a coxcomb witty; 
A dotard wise, a red coat pretty : 



476 COMIC EXTRACTS. 

Why we believe such horrid lies, — 

That we are angels from the skies; 

Our teeth are pearl, our cheeks are roses; 

Our eyes are stars; such charming noses! 

Explain our dreams, waking and sleeping; 

Explain our laughing and our weeping; 

Explain our hoping and our doubting, 

Our blushing, simpering, and pouting; 

Teach us all the enchanting arts 

Of winning, and of keeping hearts : 

Teach us, dear Doctor! if you can, 

To humble that proud creature, Man; 

To turn the wise ones into fools, 

The proud and insolent to tools; 

To make them all run, helter-skelter, 

Their necks into the marriage-halter: 

Then leave us to ourselves with these, 

We'll rule and turn them as we please. 

Dear Doctor! if you grant our wishes, 

We promise you five hundred kisses; 

And rather than the affair be blunder'd, 

We'll give you six score to the hundred. Anon. 



He and She Dandies. 

But, bless me! what, two non-descripts together! 

The she — a pile of ribband, straw, and feather; 

Her back a pillion — all above — and on it? 

A church-bell? cradle? tower? No, faith, a bonnet! — 

Ay, and an actual woman in it — able — 

Rouse but her tongue, to make that tower a Babel I 

Now for the he — the fellow non-descript : 

Whence has that mockery of man been shipp'd? 

Has Ross or Parry brought him to console 

The quidnuncs, for the passage to the pole; 

While on her iceberg howls some Greenland squaw, 

Robb'd of her pretty monster, till next thaw? 

No; Paris has the honor. — " Ah que ouir — 

" Voila" — the air, grace, shrug, — smell of Paris! 

France gave his step its trip, his tongue its phrase, 

His head its peruke, and his waist its stays! 




COMIC EXTRACTS. 477 

The thing is contraband — Let's crush the trade : 

Ladies insist on't— all is best home-made — 

All British, from your shoe-tie or your fan, 

Down to that necessary brute — call'd, Man! 

Now for the compound creature :— first, the wig, 

With every frizzle striving to look big, 

On the roug'd cheek the fresh- dyed whiskers spread, 

The thousandth part of dressing a calf's head ! 

The neckcloth next, where starch and whalebone vie 

To make the slave a walking pillory! 

The bolster'd bosom — ah! ye envying fair, 

How little dream ye of the stuff that's there ! 

What straps, ropes, steels, the aching ribs compress, 

To make the Dandy beautifully less ! 

Thus fools, their final stake of folly cast, 

By instinct to strait waistcoats come at last. 

Misjudging Shakespeare ! this escap'd thine eye, 

For tho the brains are out, the thing won't die ! 

Anon. 



The Barber s Revenge. 

Philosophers do often (that sage tribe 

Have much increas'd of late, if folks say true) 
With eloquent and bitter diatribe, 

Rail at Revenge; yet, spite of them men do, 
As we are told, 
They did of old, 
In this our day, long much to pay back joking, 
Insults or sneers, in some way that's provoking, 
Or bitter, to the persons who offend; 
But yet the practice I cannot commend, 
Tho poets, players, and play-writers may, 

Seeing it's given them often work and bread, 
Take it, for interest's sake, into their head — 
That it is natural to man, to say, 

And for " the houses" Zanga brings, defend it. 
— Howe'er that be, the passion stirs the clown, 
As well as he who pines beneath a crown; 
And kicks up strife 
In common life, 






478 COMIC EXTRACTS. 

As tragical as ever grac'd the stage; 
Indeed, my story in a better age, 
Might, through five acts, your pocket-napkins steep ! — 
" The Hair- dresser's Revenge, or, Wigs and Death!" 
Does not the very title make you weep, 
Sigh, shiver, and draw in your breath? 

Well! never had Kilmarnock neighbors been 
More intimate than Matthew Huxterdale 
And Timothy M'Snappy, till the keen 

Quarrel occurr'd, that forms the body of my tale. 
Matthew sold snuff and sugar, meal and rum, 
Salt herrings, treacle, train oil, and boheas, 
Potatoes, raisins, butter, shoe-black, cheese, 
Pens, pepper, peats, and pencils — for, to please, 
Was Matthew's aim, all who to him might come. 
In short, food, fuel, light, he gave away — 
To all who had the where withall — to pay. 
And was a general benefactor, 
Whate'er be said by a detractor, 

For genial warmth — with coals — he round drffus'd, 
And spread the light, when his whale-oil was us'd: 
He kept, in fact, a general store, 
Near by — in an adjoining door — 

To where M 'Snappy scrap'd the chin, 

Or cut the hair 
Of such as chanc'd, in passing, to step in 
And take a chair. 
Now Timothy, as barbers always are, 

Was fond of talking, and of telling news ; 
His own opinion was — he'd got a share 
Of wit, much larger than to all accrues ; 
He thatch'd the outside of the skull, 
And many an inside stuff' d with wonders full! 
Besides, none better knew the village scandal, 
Nor could of what they knew o't — make a handle. 
What wonder then, that such as Matthew should, 

That is, the warm men, leaders of " the Clachan," 
The elders, and the deacons, think it good 

To spend an hour with Timothy in " crackin'?" 

A week before the last of last December, 

(Well, honest Matthew, may'st thou it remember!) 



COMIC EXTRACTS. 4/9 

M 'Snappy, one night from the town returning 
In wondrous spirits — 

'Twas no wonder, 
Considering the merits of those under 
His waistcoat buttons — poor Tim being groggy, 
Having " drank all day, as the night was foggy," 
Met Matthew with some others, who then thought, 
As lights — in Lucky Gillstoup's — still were burning, 
To treat the barber and themselves, in one, 
Since Timothy the frolic had begun! 
Now Tim had from the neighboring market brought 

A good fat cheese, which he had bought, 
To slice at new-year's day; but Matthew thought 
He might from him have purchas'd, — so, in spite, 
He hinted a Welsh rabbit would be nice — 
As so it is! — 'Twas ordered in a trice! 
" Cut down this cheese — I'll bear, myself, the ivite" 
Quietly, said Matthew; — and M'Snappy's cheese, 
In toasted slices, did not fail to please! 
The Barber hiccup'd thanks and praises: — "Now 
If my cheese be like this, I trow, 
I'll have a toasted rabbit every winter-night!" 

Bed-time arriv'd, "Mistress! Timotheus cries, 
Give me my cheese — I'll carry home the prize!*' 
Pray, did you ever see Kean's eyes in tears, 
And looks of wonder, when "List!" Hamlet hears? 
Such was the stare of horrified affright, 
M' Snappy gave, when on his " blasted sight" 
Burst the ghost skeleton, that blood might freeze, 
Of the last fragment of his new-bought cheese ! 
Matthew with laughing, for a week was sore, 
But for the laughing, for a month and more! 
And though M' Snappy very little said, 
Dire thoughts of Barber- vengeance cramm'd his head! 
A month had pass'd, and Matthew's wig was sent 
To be new oil'd and cuiTd, with the intent 
Of gracing, on its owner's head, a dinner, 
Given by a deacon — an election- winner ! 

The wig arriv'd — adjusted — Matthew hastes 
To share the puddings, pies, and pastes 
He had kept room for in his stomach store, 
By abstinence for days before ! 



480 COMIC EXTRACTS. 

His plate is fiU'd — he has begun to eat, 
But not without remarking on the heat 
He felt, tho all around him shiver'd : 

" Bless me, said Matthew, but my head is warm ! 
" Deacon," remark'd a neighbor who'd been watching 

Poor Matthew's fidgets, " stomachs may get harm, 
If you, instead of eating, keep scratch, scratching!" 
Dinner proceeds, but not with Matthew, he 
One moment cannot rest for heat and pain, 
With which, by starts, his head and body quiver'd: 
Tears fill his eyes — " What can the matter be," 
Said one to t'other, " with poor Matthew's brain? 
A consultation's held — " You'll hold his head — 

I'll seize his hands." Poor Matt was bad before, 
But hearing this, with agony half- dead, 

He started up, and gave a dismal roar! 
Instant they catch him — this makes matters worse, 
For every touch, with pain makes Matthew curse: 
He kicks the table over, flesh, fowls, fishes, 
Break up all union with the broken dishes ! — 
They think him mad. — M'Snappy had foreseen 
His head would be inflam'd, so, for the change 
A remedy prepar'd; or else, Revenge 
Prompted him thus to vent his spleen ! 
At any rate, the cause of Matt's disaster, 

'Twas found — had been, 
That Tim had lin'd his wig with a fly-blister! Anon, 



The Village Spectre, or the Effect of Mr. J. Barleycorn. 

From the red cow, whose dear delight 
Sooth'd Hodge's days, and cheer'd his night, 
As reeling homeward and alone, 
He heard, or thought he heard, a groan ! — 
He stopp'd, he listen'd — no! the breeze 
No longer sported with the trees: 
Nor bat, nor owl, nor even a mouse, 
But now was silent in its house. 



The stile was pass'd, and he had reel'd 
Half o'er the path that cross'd the field, 










COMIC EXTRACTS. 

When, lo ! a phantom seem'd to fly 
Across! athwart! before his eye; 
Whizzing it went, and whizzing came, 
'Twas now all smoke, and now all flame ! 
Aloft it flew, then to the ground, 
And flitter'd, whizzing round and round! 
It stopp'd, it chang'd, and now he saw 
A mighty spectre, all of straw ! 
Before his path it took its stand, 
And straddled o'er three roods of land ; 
Its long bare arms were seen to rise, 
And hold straw sheaf-bands to his eyes; 
With two just such, a village elf, 
Not long before, had hang'd himself. 
About its head it wore a crown, 
Of poppies made and thistle-down; 
Dark was its face, a fearful sight, 
Black smut and every kind of blight, 
Made it a very perfect fright. 
" Follow!" it roar'd, away it flew, 
And Hodge, in wild dismay, it drew 
All through the corn about the field, 
For Hodge to all its freaks must yield; 
It rais'd him up, it threw him down, 
It bruis'd his limbs, and broke his crown ; 
Drove him and beat him like a witch, 
And left him sprawling in a ditch! 
The next day found him there at noon, 
Still in a sort of spectre-swoon. 
At home arriv'd, when rest in bed 
Had sooth'd his limbs and clear'd his head, 
He swore, as sure as he was born, 
He'd seen the Demon of the Corn; 
Told all the story o'er and o'er, 
And strictly to the truth on't swore; 
And Giles and Clodden, vow they saw 
The beaten grain and broken straw, 
Where it had hurl'd him to the ground, 
And dragg'd him through and all around. 
Even at this day, tho many years 
Have pass'd to calm the village fears, 

T T 



m , 



481 



482 COMIC EXTRACTS. 

Some Hodges, as they pass at night, 

Think they behold the fearful sprite; 

And, strange! — it seems to love, they say, 

From the Red Cow, the shortest way! Anon. 



Modem Logic. 
An Eton stripling training for the Law, 
A Dunce at Syntax, but a Dab at Taw, 
One happy Christmas, laid upon the shelf 
His cap, his gown, and store of learned pelf, 
With all the deathless Bards of Greece and Rome, 
To spend a fortnight at his Uncle's home. 
Arriv'd, and past the usual " How d'ye do's," 
Inquiries of old friends, and College news. 
" Well Tom — the road, what saw you worth discerning, 
And how goes study, boy — what is't your learning ?" 
" Oh, Logic, Sir, — but not the worn-out rules 
Of Locke and Bacon — antiquated fools! 
'Tis wit and wranglers' Logic — thus, d'ye see, 
I'll prove to you as clear as A, B, C, 
That an eel-pie's a pigeon: — to deny it, 
Were to swear black's white." — " Indeed!" — " Let's try it. 
An eel-pie, is a pie of fish." — " Well — agreed." 
" A fish-pie may be a Jack-pie." — " Proceed." 
" A Jack-pie must be a John-pie — thus, 'tis done, 
For every John-pie is Pi-ge-on!" 
" Bravo!" Sir Peter cries — " Logic for ever, 
It beats my grandmother — and she was clever ! 
But zounds, my boy — it surely would be hard, 
That wit and learning should have no reward ! 
To-morrow, for a stroll, the park we'll cross, 
And then I'll give you" — "What?" — " My chesnut-horse." 
" A horse:" cries Tom, "blood, pedigree, and paces, 
Oh what a dash I'll cut at Epsom races!" — 
He went to bed, and wept for downright sorrow, 
To think the night must pass before the morrow; 
Dream'dof his boots, his cap, his spurs, and leather breeches, 
Of leaping five-barr'd gates, and crossing ditches : 
Left his warm bed an hour before the lark, 
Dragg'd his old Uncle fasting through the park: — - 



A 



COMIC EXTRACTS. 488 

Each craggy hill and dale in vain they cross, 

To find out something like a chesnut-horse 

But no such animal the meadows cropp'd; 

At length, beneath a tree, Sir Peter stopp'd; 

Took a bough — shook it — and down fell 

A fine horse-chesnut in its prickly shell. — 

" There Tom— take that."— " Well Sir, and what beside?" 

"Why, since your booted — saddle it, and ride!" 

" Ride what! — A chesnut!" " Ay, come get across, 

I tell you, Tom, the chesnut is a horse, 

And all the horse you'll get— for I can show 

As clear as sunshine, that 'tis really so — 

Not by the musty, fusty, worn-out rules 

Of Locke and Bacon — addle-headed fools! 

All maxims! — but the wranglers I disown, 

And stick to one sound argument — your own. 

Since you have prov'd to me — I don't deny 

That a pie- John is the same as a John-pie ! 

What follows then, but as a thing of course, 

That a horse-chesnut is a chesnut-horse?" Anon- 



TJie Country Bumpkin and the Razor -Seller. 

A fellow in a market- town, 
Most musical cried razors up and down, 

And offer'd twelve for eighteenpence ; 
Which certainly seem'd wondrous cheap, 
And for the money quite a heap, 

As every man should buy, with cash and sense. 

A country bumpkin the great offer heard: 

Poor Hodge ! who suffer 'd by a thick, black beard, 

That seem'd a shoe -brush stuck beneath his nose: 
With cheerfulness the eighteenpence he paid, 
And proudly to himself, in whispers, said, 

6 This rascal stole the razors, I suppose ! 

* No matter if the fellow be a knave, 
Provided that the razors shave; 

It sartinly will be a monstrous prize:' 
So, home the clown, with his good fortune, went, 
Smiling in heart, and soul content, 

And quickly soap'd himself to ears and eyes. 




484 COMIC EXTRACTS. 

Being well lather'd from a dish or tub, 
Hodge now began with grinning pain to grub, 

Just like a hedger cutting furze : 
'Twas a vile razor! — then the rest he tried-— 
All were imposters — <Ah,' Hodge sigh'd! 

< 1 wish my eighteenpence within my purse.' 

In vain to chase his beard, and bring the graces, 

He cut, and dug, and winc'd, and stamp'd, and swore i 

Brought blood and danc'd, blasphem'd and made wry faces,! 
And curs'd each razor's body o'er and o'er! 

His muzzle, form'd of opposition stuff, 
Firm as a Foxite, would not lose its ruff; 

So kept it — laughing at the steel and suds: 
Hodge, in a passion, stretch'd his angry jaws, 
Vowing the direst vengeance, with clench'd claws, 

On the vile cheat that sold the goods. 
Razors! a damn'd confounded dog, 
Not fit to scrape a hog!' 

Hodge sought the fellow — found him, and began — 
i Perhaps, Master razor -rogue, to you 'tis fun, 

That people flay themselves out of their lives : 
You rascal ! for an hour have I been grubbing, 
Giving my scoundrel whiskers here a scrubbing, 

With razors just like oyster-knives. 
Sirrah! I tell you, you're a knave, 
To cry up razors that can't shave.' 

* Friend,' quoth the razor-man, < I'm no knave: 
As for the razors you have bought, 
Upon my soul, I never thought 
That they would shave.' 

< Not think they'd shave!' quoth Hodge, with wondering 
eyes, 
And voice not much unlike an Indian yell; 
i What were they made for then, you dog?' he cries: 
i Made!' quoth the fellow, with a smile, — ' to sell- 

Pinjtar. 



JAMES HEDDERWICK AND SON, PRINTERS, GLASGOW. 
V} 



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